Losing Young
Rachel Wilson’s mother died when Rachel was in her twenties. It felt like the definitive end of childhood, a loss that rewired her perspective on life, death, relationships and who she was as a person.
In this book, Rachel brings together other stories of bereavement with her own, encountering people who have lost parents, siblings, partners and friends at a young age. Losing Young draws on psychological research, interviews with titans like Julia Samuel and explorations of grief in history: what happens in a time of war or pandemic, when the many grieve – or struggle to – together? How do different cultures process the end of a life differently? How can the grief of losing a parent return in strange form when one thinks about having children? What do TV and fiction get disastrously, unhelpfully wrong?
This is a personal and profound book about what happens when youth is reshaped by tragedy, trauma and loss. It’s for anyone who mourns a lost future, who is struggling to find themselves after grief, or hopes to feel less alone.
RACHEL WILSON is a writer and the founder of The Grief Network, a community run by and for bereaved young people. Her writing has appeared in The Times, the Guardian, the New Statesman and more. She is currently training to become a barrister.