Guardians

On July 24, 2008, the Riverdale Press ran a short item about a man, not yet identified, who had been killed instantly by a Metro-North train the night before. The man was called Harris. Sarah Manguso wrote this book in the years that followed, after he had left a psychiatric hospital and taken his own life. It is a memoir of mourning, but the person she mourns is not a parent or a partner. It is her closest friend.

The book builds a picture of Harris through the ordinary details of their life together. He played music and wrote both software and songs. He learned to drive, attended college, and had romantic relationships with women. Manguso treats these small facts as the substance of a real friendship between a man and a woman, with all the surprising particulars that come with it.

Written with wit and frankness, the book shows how grief can take forms that do not match what people expect. It will appeal to readers of personal memoir and to anyone interested in friendship, loss and the aftermath of a suicide.