When Death Takes Something from You, Give It Back Carl's Book

In March 2015, Naja Marie Aidt's son Carl died at twenty-five years old in a tragic accident.When Death Takes Something from You, Give It Back describes the first year after that devastating phone call. It is at once a sober account of life after losing a child--showing how grief transforms one's relationship to reality, loved ones, and time--and an exploration of the language of poetry, loss, and love. Faced with the sudden emptiness of language, Aidt finds solace in the anguish of Joan Didion, Nick Cave, C.S. Lewis, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and other writers who have suffered the deadening impact of loss. Their torment suffuses with her own as Aidt wrestles with words and contests their capacity to speak for the depths of her sorrow. Intensely moving and quietly devastating,When Death Takes Something from You, Give It Back explores what is it to be a family, what it is to love and lose, and what it is to treasure life in spite of death's indomitable resolve.