Losing Helen: An Essay

(Paperback)

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Losing Helen is a moving and inspiring essay that tracks an adult daughter through the many complex phases of grief as she anticipates the inevitable loss of her elderly mother. Finding strength and guidance in the spiritual insights of writers, artists, Western religion, and Eastern philosophies, the narrator undergoes a profound transforma

Reviews

A short and powerful evocation of a mother's death and of the events immediately preceding them. . . . those going through similar trials will take much solace from the author's story.

Kirkus Reviews

In this quiet, lovely essay, Becker takes readers through the years and months leading up to her mothers death and the mourning period that followed, delving into the grief of losing a much-loved parent. . . . Beckers writing is so beautifuland the process of grieving so universalthat it deserves a wide audience.

Publishers Weekly

Losing Helen is a compact essay whose themes probe deep. In Becker's reflective prose, she acknowledges that all "art making and writing is just an attempt to give... unfathomability form. I am not sure anyone... succeeds." Becker (The Invisible Drama) does indeed succeed--profoundly. This meditative, grace-filled gem is moving and soul-enriching.

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Author Bio

Carol Becker is Professor of the Arts and Dean of Faculty at Columbia University School of the Arts in New York City. She has written for many print and online publications on varied topics, including the intellectual lives and emotional well-being of women. Her recently reissued book The Invisible Drama: Women and the Anxiety of Change has been translated into six languages.