African American grief vs In My Blood

African American grief

Paul C. Rosenblatt

2005

African American Grief is a unique contribution to the field, both as a professional resource for counselors, therapists, social workers, clergy, and nurses, and as a reference volume for thanatologists, academics, and researchers. The classic edition includes a new preface from the authors reflecting on their work and on the changes in society and the field since the book’s initial publication. This work considers the potential effects of slavery, racism, and white ignorance and oppression on the African American experience and conception of death and grief in America. Based on interviews with 26 African Americans who have faced the death of a significant person in their lives, the authors document, describe, and analyze key phenomena of the unique African American experience of grief. The book combines moving narratives from the interviewees with sound research, analysis, and theoretical discussion of important issues in thanatology, as well as topics such as the influence of the African American church, gospel music, family grief, medical racism as a cause of death, and discrimination during life and after death.

In My Blood

John Sedgwick

2007

While working on his second novel, John Sedgwick spiraled into a depression so profound that it very nearly resulted in suicide. An author acclaimed for his intimate literary excursions into the rarified, moneyed enclave of Brahmin Boston, he decided to search for the roots of his malaise in the history of his own storied family—one of America's oldest and most notable. Following a bloodline that travels from Theodore Sedgwick, compatriot of George Washington and John Adams, to Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's tragic muse, John Sedgwick's very personal journey of self-discovery became something far greater: a spellbinding study of the evolution of an extraordinary American family.