f o r c o n s i d e r a t i o n
The Ninth: A Theme and Variation on Grief
by Angela Carole Brown
The Ninth: A Theme and Variation on Grief is the proposed title of a memoir I have completed, and for which I am seeking representation. It begins with the sudden death of my mother, once a charismatic figure in Los Angeles’ political scene, and one of the first African-American woman CEOs, and chronicles the events that follow her passing; the daily, mundane checklists that go along with preparing for a funeral. Yet what slowly begins to simmer beneath the familial obligations, the juggling of public perceptions, and the banal day-to-day is an unexpected, and often dark, odyssey of self-excavation and self-revelation about who I was as a daughter, who she was as a mother, and the tragic circumstances that brought us to a place of estrangement at the time of her passing.
The honor of examining the nuances of grief has been a transformative experience for me, and serves as a journey toward wellness that is as universal as it is personal.
I have a complete manuscript that is approximately 200 pages (58,000 words), for consideration.
Comparison works might include the grief memoirs of Edwidge Danticat and Joan Didion, or Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie.
I have made my living for the past twenty-five years as a musician in Los Angeles. I have written my whole life, but have never made it the focal point of my career, so I have few pieces published to date. They include two essays published online by The National Kidney Foundation, my novel Trading Fours on Infinity Publishing, and the Heritage Magazine Award in poetry.
Sincerely,
Angela Carole Brown
Synopsis
The Ninth: A Theme and Variation on Grief recounts the sudden death of author Angela Carole Brown’s mother, and the wake of grief that followed.
The book begins with the devastating news, and chronicles the events that follow, depicting the daily, mundane checklists that go along with preparing for a funeral, yet slowly unfolding what simmers beneath; an unexpected odyssey of self-excavation and self-revelation.
The chapters that follow the establishment of the premise portray swatches from Brown’s and her mother's life, to reveal the seeds of their dynamic as mother and daughter, and the tragic circumstances that brought them to a place of estrangement at the time of the passing.
The story is visited by frequent family flashbacks, revelations about who Brown's mother was, both publicly and personally, and the ways in which Brown, herself, has been shaped and contoured, for better and for worse, by the extraordinary and often difficult presence of her mother in her life.Themes
Grief, and how it reveals our authentic self in the face of loss, is the primary theme here. Throughout the book Brown looks inward to self, and constantly finds that self in a tug-of-war between truth and self-preservation.
The life lessons that this story encompasses are forgiveness and self-forgiveness, acceptance, living one’s truth, and the importance of resolving the unresolved, which, even in the face of death, is never too late to accomplish. As Brown begins to experience a softening to the facts of her mother's complicated life, and finds great value in examining it to its fullest, she is ultimately able to recognize a brilliant sheen in the experience of giving someone you love a closer look.
The book examines addiction, depression, and the twelve-step philosophy, as well as the statistic that people from alcoholic families experience higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of differentiation-of-self than people raised in non-alcoholic families.
Brown uses, as her motif, and which serves as juxtaposition to the many feel-good, warm-fuzzies of self-help literature, the idea of tapping the unconscious well, of going to that place where cave spiders dwell, and the ethos that the ultimate way out of darkness and into light, healing, and hope is by foraging through the tangled, weedy backwoods.
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