11 moving books about grief, love and loss
Oona Frawley's This Interim Time is a poignant meditation on memory, family, and the brief windows of life we share with those we love. To celebrate Irish Book Week (18–25 October), Oona joins us to share some of her favourite books about grief.
"Reading has always been a central to my life, in times of joy, but also in times of crisis or loss. Whether experiencing the thrill and fear of new parenthood or the loss of some of the people I've loved most, I've turned to books to see my experiences reflected and articulated. Writing a memoir was a new experience for me, and during the process I read widely and was always inspired. Some of these are books I return to year after year for their brilliance at representing love, loss, and family, and others are works that chimed with the mood I wanted to achieve in this book or provided reassurance that I wasn’t alone in grief, parenthood, life. While writing, I hoped that This Interim Time would provide some of that same solace and reassurance to other people." Oona Frawley
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Golden Booker Prize-winner Michael Ondaatje is my favourite author, and this memoir captures family stories from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in the 1920s, and also on Ondaatje's return to the place of his birth many years later. It is filled with gorgeous, rich description and much humour, with a vivid sense of place.
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar
Novelist Hisham Matar returned to his birthplace of Libya in 2012, the first visit he has made in decades, since the family went into exile in 1979 and since his father was kidnapped by the regime in 1990. The book isn't just a cultural history, though; it is also a profoundly moving account of a son's search for his father.
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li's heartrending account of the loss of her sons is almost terrifying in its precision, but there is such grace and quiet fortitude in the pages that the reader can't but find wonder there, too.
Milk: On Motherhood and Madness by Alice Kinsella
Irish poet Alice Kinsella's gorgeous collection about pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, daughterhood and writing is one that I greatly admire: it deftly weaves together and collapses timeframes in the way that our minds do as we think about the past and imagine the future in moments of stillness.
Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2018–2021, Barry's most recent novel is a reminder not only of his genius as a storyteller, but of the astonishing power of his poetic prose: I cared so deeply for retired policeman Tom Kettle, whose memories guide the reader through painful episodes of personal history that are also some of the most painful in Irish history.
Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell
Farrell's debut novel, told from the perspective of a boy in 1980s Ireland trying to puzzle through a change in his family circumstance, is a standout of 2025: the boy's voice is unforgettable, and the narrative is full of warmth.
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
This book is another astonishing representation of motherhood from an Irish writer, this time novelist Claire Kilroy. Rarely have I read a book that captures the fever of early motherhood and the intensity of the bond with a child.
Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley
Tessa Hadley never disappoints, and this novel, about the aftermath of a sudden death and its impact on a group of intimate friends, is an astonishing portrayal of grief and love.
Middlemarch by George Eliot
About once a year, I reread this book, getting new things out of it each time. Eliot's fictional town brims with intrigue, gossip, ill-fated and sometimes hopeful love. The thrill of getting to watch these characters' lives unfold and overlap and move towards conclusions is one I continue to look forward to.
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
The Australian Tim Winton's novel, about the interweaving of two families' lives in a ramshackle house on Cloud Street in post-war Western Australia, is masterful, funny, full of brilliant characters that you feel you are meeting in real time.
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
Tommy Orange's multi-generational novel traces the legacies of a massacre from the late 19th century through to present-day United States.
About This Interim Time by Oona Frawley
How do we live when our loved ones are dying? How do we make sense of the world in their wake? And how do we balance love in the present with memory of the past?
As she witnesses her mother's descent into dementia and a beloved friend's cruel battle with cancer, Oona Frawley reconsiders the death of her father in New York decades earlier, the loss of her parents' home in Ireland before she was born, and the births of her own children. Balancing between grief at the passing of those closest to her, and joy at the emergence of new life, Frawley has wrought a stunning meditation on memory, family and the brief windows of life we share with those we love.
Utterly humane, fearlessly honest and always, at its core, hopeful, This Interim Time is a powerful, moving work at once intensely personal and entirely universal.
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