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Time Lived, Without Its Flow Hardcover – October 3, 2019

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 90 ratings

'I work to earth my heart.'

Time Lived, Without Its Flow is an astonishing, unflinching essay on the nature of grief from critically acclaimed poet Denise Riley. From the horrific experience of maternal grief Riley wrote her lauded collection Say Something Back, a modern classic of British poetry. This essay is a companion piece to that work, looking at the way time stops when we lose someone suddenly from our lives. A book of two discrete halves, the first half is formed of diary-like entries written by Riley after the news of her son’s death, the entries building to paint a live portrait of loss. The second half is a ruminative post script written some years later with Riley looking back at the experience philosophically and attempting to map through it a literature of consolation. Written in precise and exacting prose, with remarkable insight and grace this book will form kind counsel to all those living on in the wake of grief. A modern-day counterpart to C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed.

Published widely for the first time, this revised edition features a brand new introduction by Max Porter, author of Grief is A Thing With Feathers.

'Her writing is perfectly weighted, justifies its existence' - Guardian

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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; Main Market edition (October 3, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529017106
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529017106
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.69 x 0.75 x 7.28 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 90 ratings

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Denise Riley
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
90 global ratings

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  • hockey66
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gift
    Reviewed in Canada on December 12, 2019
    I think my friend will find this supportive in her grief.
  • Bryony Doran
    5.0 out of 5 stars I would give this 10 stars if I could
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2018
    This is such an amazing and courageous piece of writing. It asks the unimaginable: How would you, could you cope if you lost a child? I think it was such a generous act on Denise Riley's account to share what she went through and I hope the writing of it helped her as much as it must have helped people who read it. I didn't know if I would be strong enough to read it but I was and I am glad I did. I gave my original copy away to someone who had lost a son but then I felt bereft that it was no longer on my shelves so I bought another copy
  • prosepoem1
    4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant discourse on an area of grief that is rarely mentioned.
    Reviewed in Canada on November 17, 2019
    Forensic analysis of grief after the loss of a child. Moving and precisely stated, and a much-needed discourse on an area of grief rarely mentioned, and so a great service. One hopes this books receives a wider audience that the somewhat academic production might indicate. I am now looking at time in an entirely different way.
  • thomas otts
    5.0 out of 5 stars I needed to hear what was written
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2019
    by this remarkable writer. If grief, in any of its shapeshifting guises, has stilled time for you, this will feel something akin to having the mirror talk back to you in a language you're incapable of formulating for yourself.
  • PurplePepper
    3.0 out of 5 stars Hmm
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2024
    The title sounded poetic and enticing. Reviews were positive and promising. The lengthy introductory piece by Max Porter would, in my opinion, have stood better some place else and on its own. The main piece, I admit, I don't know what to make of it. It's not about death (she says). It is about grief (says everybody) but certainly not in the usual manner and not how one might expect. Rather, it's an essay about time, arrested, "lived, without its flow", upon the sudden death of one's child. (Only when sudden? Only when a child's?) This is apparently quite common, and liveable. The difficulty, according to the author, is trying to describe it, and that's what she's set out to do. I do not know whether she's succeeded. Is hers a lament, or a linguistic exercise? (Of course, one need not exclude the other.) I did not get her point. That's perhaps because when death hit me in the face/the heart/the stomach .. -, time, arrested or otherwise, was the least of my worries/pain/dispair. Indeed, time arrested sounds like bliss (a blessing?) to me: When death upends my world and the world doesn't oblige by arresting time, then I shall arrest (my) time, and sit with it, be it flowing or not.
    As I've said, I didn't get and have likely totally missed her point.