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Summary of Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
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Summary of
Grief Is for People
A
Summary of Sloane Crosley’s book
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Summary of Grief Is for People bySloane Crosley
By GP SUMMARY© 2024, GP SUMMARY.
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This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Sloane Crosley’s “Grief Is for People” designed to enrich your reading experience.
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PART I
DON’T LET ME KEEP YOU
(DENIAL)
On June 27, 2019, the narrator leaves their apartment for an hour and returns home to find all their jewelry missing. The thief enters through the bedroom window, taking away 41 pieces of jewelry, including the narrator's grandmother's amber amulet and her green cocktail ring. The narrator's grandmother was abusive and creative, and the thief took the jewelry, which were originally her grandmother's possessions.
The narrator has been trying to repurpose these items, but they have never worn them on planes. The thief also stole the narrator's other grandmother's silver engagement band, charm bracelet, and a cow-shaped pin. All the narrator has left is being dumped into a stranger's backpack.
The narrator reflects on the events of June 27, 2019, and the days that followed, which will be bookended by personal loss and a year of global loss. They realize that the burglary is a dark gift of delineation and that no one is obliged to learn something from loss. They have read grief literature, grief philosophy, and grief podcasts, and have learned the power of the present tense.
On August 27, 2019, the narrator is writing these words on the evening of August 27, 2019, two months after the burglary and one month since the violent death of their friend on July 27, 2019. They will edit these sentences later, when the gap between the past and present is more of a chasm, to better control how they think of these absences and continue with conversations without flinching when someone mentions the wrong movie or song. However, they are in denial that their friend is gone and that the jewelry is gone.
Denial is a common human trait, as humans are allergic to their own mortality and will do anything to avoid it. This stage of grief is particularly difficult for the protagonist, who is holding onto her losses as if they were familiar but not quite her own. The protagonist's friends are initially tragic, but they are also intrigued by the mystery of the burglary. They are drawn to the thought experiment of the burglary more than the actual crime itself.
The protagonist initially insists there is no trauma, but the trauma humps her leg like a dog. She recalls the sound of an amber amulet and the memories of other people's jewelry on the subway. When she returns home, she finds several ceramic drawers where her jewelry is smashed, which she initially thinks are from an earthquake. However, when she calls 911, she hears an urgent but searching voice. The operator is in the midst of sharing a joke with her colleague, but she cannot quite pull it together in time.
The protagonist's friend Russell, who is dead now, enters the story before it begins. In a way, the thief is stealing from him too. He was here first, and their job titles were meaningless strings of code. Their weekend visits to the house he shared with his partner were a 6:00 a.m. wake-up call to drive to the edge of a field and drink instant coffee from foam cups. His partner and the protagonist would groggily plod along as Russell zipped between blankets pinned down by cheap trinkets.
In a flea market, Russell is a haggler known for his impish smile, timeless charm, and competitive edge. He is the perfect intersection of frugality and taste, and no bazaar has seen a haggler like him. The author describes Russell's love for a spice cabinet, which he found at a Dutch spice shop. The cabinet was a massive item with 14 white drawers and two thin wooden shelves for dangling necklaces.
A thief broke into the cabinet, stealing the shelves and a gold chain. The author calls Russell to confess what happened, wanting to maintain their friendship and avoid division. It is harder to tell Russell about the burglary than it will be to tell her mother, who is a direct descendant of the bracelettossing child tormentor. However, Russell understands objects as spiritual avatars and is more loyal than most.
Russell adores tales of the author's wicked grandmother and her Joan Crawford joie de vivre, but is saddened that their physical prompts have been taken away. He dwells on the missing egg shelves, as if this action is from the wrong movie. When the author reminds him of the actual jewelry taken, he steers the conversation back to the shelves, as it is unnecessary. The absence of the jewelry from the cabinet has not added insult to injury; their absence is the injury. It will take time for the author to realize that Russell cannot stomach the sadness of the larger violation.
Two cops arrive to investigate a crime, and the protagonist is asked about her life. She is surprised to find her laptop on the table and three more cops show up, including one with a fingerprint kit. The protagonist is concerned about the crime's calculation and the fact that she published a novel about stolen jewelry four years ago. She wonders if the crime was due to her material wealth and her social status.
The protagonist is also concerned about the potential consequences of her book promotion, which she believes is a form of self-deprecation. She shares her theory with a forensics cop, who is different from the thief's. The detective asks her about her past relationships and whether she had any inside jobs in her apartment. She reveals that the only recent visitor was a man she broke up with a week prior, who is not in touch with a criminal element.
The protagonist is amused by the idea that the police might search her house for an axe, but she dismisses this as a weapon only insofar as hipster affectation is a weapon. One of the cops suggests that the thief may have cared more than she thought, but she remains skeptical. The story highlights the challenges faced by women in today's world, particularly those who are not well-represented in the media.
The author, who had been working for Russell for five years in the publicity department at Vintage Books, the paperback arm of the fabled Knopf, found his résumé in the back of a filing cabinet. He felt both chuffed and threatened by the other candidates for the job, as they all had the same gnarly paper cuts, glossy author photos, and filled out the same overtime forms under the same recessed lighting and drank the same bomb-shelter coffee from the same mugs.
Russell, who had been with the company since 1990, was the most sought-after publishing house in America at the turn of the century. He had a rolodex open to the "C" tab and had been with the company since 1990. He instructed the author to pick a book from his shelves and read it if they didn't see the value in it.
Over the next decade, Russell delighted in telling people he was "working as a waitress in a cocktail bar" when he hired him. He had issued a course correction that would be imperceptible to the naked eye—he stopped commuting to one publishing house and started commuting to another. Their partnership felt transferable, as they moved fluidly among the roles of parent, child, sibling, and subordinate, swapping positions as they do in experimental theater.
