In July 1989 Barbara Lazear Ascher learned that her brother, Bobby, had died of AIDS at the age of thirty-one. With an older sister's efficiency, she notified her parents and arranged Bobby's cremation; then, almost against her will, she began to grieve. This extraordinary book is a record of what she encountered in that "landscape without gravity."
Here is a bold account of a sister coming to terms with her brother's death and with the type of grief that arises only when one sibling loses another—a grief that is all too often unacknowledged and borne in silence. Here too is a map for that "hero's journey" we call mourning. Ascher locates the moments of healing inside the kind of hurt that seems to last forever, making this profoundly comforting, invaluable reading for anyone—especially brothers and sisters faced with loss.
"Heartbreaking, without pretense of self-pity . . . Shows others whose grief seems overwhelming and unmanageable how to follow her out of the dark wood."
—Rosellen Brown, author of Before and After
"Beautifully written . . . ccombining sober self-scrutiny with vivid evocations of emotions and people. And—could the word be freed from its generally saccharine connotations—Landscape without Gravity might even be called 'inspirational.'"
—The Advocate
"Lyrical and moving"
—The Washington Post Book World
"Like most worthwhile literature and art, Landscape without Gravity is a way of connecting with the human heart. . . . by cutting to the core of her own experience, Ascher has written a book about loss that is at once completely personal and universal. Her honesty touches the reader's heart, opens the scars of old wounds, and helps to heal them. . . . Wrenching . . . insightful . . . compelling."
—The Boston Globe
