The Specific Gravity of Grief, by Jay Lake

I wonder what this book is like to someone who doesn't know Jay. This book was hardest for me when its reality intersected with my own. I've seen that rusty sweater, I was in that room at Iron Springs. I'm already carrying a lot of emotions of my own to the emotional apocalypse.

It's a semi-autobiographical look at my friend and mentor's struggle with cancer. It's a few parts narrative, a few parts philosophizing. It intellectualizes emotions, and pierces rationality with the cold needle of reality.

There are dramas a hundred times more intricate and emotional than Hamlet playing inside the minds of everyone around you, but you don't get to see them. They're composed of fears and hopes and imaginings of what life could be like. In writing this, Jay is showing you the play running through his head, and all the painful emotions that go with it. Reading it, you just want to hug him and go, "it's all right, it's all right. She's still with you, and your daughter's just fine." But to do that is to discount the reality of the emotions. Maybe, in writing this, Jay is hoping to eject the tumor of fear growing in his psyche. He's turned the mutated child of his fears into a slim, hardbacked novella for friends and strangers alike to carry away.

It's an apocalyptic tale, a worst case scenario, but like any good apocalypse, it leaves sparks of hope behind to burn in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. And everyone loves a good post-apocalypse, don't they?

All I can say is, I'm glad he's still around to have a birthday party this weekend. I don't think I could have read this book otherwise.

In other news, if I hear my rumors right. spencimusprime and his wife are having a baby this very minute.