Name All the Animals - by Alison Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

In one of the most highly acclaimed debuts of recent years, this chronicle of a family haunted by the memory of a lost child provides insight into the emotional life of the American family, the power of sibling love and loyalty, and the excruciating joy of first forbidden love.

Book Synopsis

The critically acclaimed, heartbreaking memoir that is at once a gorgeous, profound, and redemptive story of a family holding desperately to the memory of a lost child; and a touching, intelligent, and inspiring coming-out story.A luminous, true story, Name All the Animals is an unparalleled account of grief and secret love: the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and of a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss. As children, siblings Alison and Roy Smith were so close that their mother called them by one name, Alroy. But when Alison was fifteen, she woke one day to learn that Roy, eighteen, was dead. Heartbreaking but hopeful, this extraordinary memoir explores the aftermath of Roy's death: his parents' enduring romance, the faith of a deeply religious community, and the excitement and anguish of Alison's first love--a taboo relationship that opens up a world beyond the death of her brother.

Review Quotes

"Alison Smith has written a beautiful, completely unsentimental memoir so full of love and sorrow and the stuff of everyday that you live in it as much as read it." -- Anna Quindlen