Kayak Morning - by Roger Rosenblatt (Paperback)

About the Book

"Kayak Morning" is a moving meditation on the passages of grief, the solace of solitude, and the redemptive power of love, from the bestselling author of "Making Toast" and "Unless It Moves the Human Heart."

Book Synopsis

"There is indeed life after death, and Rosenblatt proves that without a doubt."
--USA Today

From Roger Rosenblatt, the bestselling author of Making Toast and Unless It Moves the Human Heart, comes a poignant meditation on the nature of grief, the passages through it, the solace of solitude, and the healing power of love. Rosenblatt's Kayak Morning is a classic in the making, akin to A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis--a coming to terms with tragic, senseless loss that offers readers an unsentimental and deeply moving account of the possibility of true redemption. A profoundly beautiful and intimate gift from an exceptional writer, Kayak Morning is Roger Rosenblatt writing bravely and unforgettably from the heart.

From the Back Cover

From Roger Rosenblatt, author of the bestsellers Making Toast and Unless It Moves the Human Heart, comes a moving meditation on the passages of grief, the solace of solitude, and the redemptive power of love

In Making Toast, Roger Rosenblatt shared the story of his family in the days and months after the death of his thirty-eight-year-old daughter, Amy. Now, in Kayak Morning, he offers a personal meditation on grief itself. "Everybody grieves," he writes. From that terse, melancholy observation emerges a work of art that addresses the universal experience of loss.

On a quiet Sunday morning, two and a half years after Amy's death, Roger heads out in his kayak. He observes,"You can't always make your way in the world by moving up. Or down, for that matter. Boats move laterally on water, which levels everything. It is one of the two great levelers." Part elegy, part quest, Kayak Morning explores Roger's years as a journalist, the comforts of literature, and the value of solitude, poignantly reminding us that grief is not apart from life but encompasses it. In recalling to us what we have lost, grief by necessity resurrects what we have had.

Review Quotes

"[An] exquisite, restrained little memoir filled with both hurt and humor." - NPR's All Things Considered
"[MAKING TOAST] is about coping with grief, caring for children and creating an ad hoc family for as long as this particular configuration is required, but mostly it's a textbook on what constitutes perfect writing and how to be a class act." - Carolyn See, The Washington Post
"Rosenblatt...sets a perfect tone and finds the right words to describe how his family is coping with their grief... It may seem odd to call a book about such a tragic event charming, but it is. There is indeed life after death, and Rosenblatt proves that without a doubt." - USA Today
"There are circumstances in which prose is poetry, and the unornamented candor of Rosenblatt's writing slowly attains to a sober sort of lyricism." - Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic
"Beautiful and moving." - New York Times
"Sad but somehow triumphant, this memoir is a celebration of family, and of how, even in the deepest sorrow, we can discover new links of love and the will to go on." - O, the Oprah Magazine
"Hauntingly lovely." - Christian Science Monitor