The Crying Book by Heather Christle. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.
"Most crying happens at night. People cry out of fatigue. But how horrible is it to hear someone say, "She's just tired!" Tired, yes, certainly, but just? There is nothing just about it."
The Crying Book by poet Heather Christle is part prose poem and part longform lyrical essay. Christle blends memoir with cultural criticism and a scientific look at how and why we cry. Did you know that there are chemical differences between emotional tears and tears produced as a result of physical irritation?
In the author's note at the beginning of the book, Christle informs us that The Crying Book has been five years in the making. It began as an idea to "make a map of every place I'd ever cried". The finished product is so much more than this.
While Christle shares her experiences of depression, pregnancy and the abortion she had, her second pregnancy and motherhood, and her grief following the death by suicide of a beloved friend, she places these events in the wider context of a world which still hasn't reckoned with the stigma associated with mental illness and the racist history of white people using their tears as a weapon against Black people and people of colour.
The Crying Book is a beautifully written and thought-provoking examination of the intersections between crying and art, feminism, politics and race.
The Crying Boolk by Heather Christle is published by Corsair and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format.