Books

What’s it like when a complete unknown is actually close family? In Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship—a provocative anthology curated by B.K. Jackson, with a foreword by Libby Copeland, 28 acclaimed and emerging writers explore the transformative experience of encountering unknown close relatives. These are intimate stories by those who’ve spent years longing and searching for their unknown biological families and by others shocked to discover they have parents or siblings they never dreamed of—blindsiding revelations that demand both a radical recalibration of identity and a redefinition of family. Each addresses the myriad emotions that arise in the wake of these discoveries and encounters, demonstrating that what we don’t know can hurt us, that secrets are toxic, and that truth can bring healing, redemption, and, sometimes, estrangement. Woven through is a universal question: What does it mean to be family?

Read a review of Relative Strangers from Hippocampus Magazine.

This collection of writing from 26 authors examines sibling loss from a number of unique perspectives, including dealing with the death of an estranged sibling, unpacking delayed grief, what it means to know your existence is inextricably tangled with a sister’s death, and exploring signs and continuing bonds, while also validating common experiences among grieving siblings such as having our loss overlooked, a lack of resources and the impossibility of “getting over it.” These stories affirm that the death of a brother or sister is a profound and life-altering loss–and that both love and grief can last a lifetime.

Read a review of The Loss of a Lifetime from The Independent Critic.