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Praise for Losing My Sister

“Goldman beautifully renders the complexity of sibling relationships with candidness, tenderness, and sorrow . . . [Her] book speaks to the human ability to forgive and attain a measure of peace amid loss.”
~ Publishers Weekly

“A sensitive look at the intricacies and evolution of sisterhood and family… Recommended.”
~ Library Journal

“[Goldman’s] narrative is, in fact, full of life’s minutiae — childhood play, family dinners, hurt feelings. And yet, the sum of these small parts gives readers something profound…”
~ The Charlotte Observer

“Poignant.”
~ Kirkus Review

“Judy Goldman, veteran poet, novelist, essayist and teacher, has a great talent for close observation, and it shows in her new memoir… Goldman presents her family history through a collection of small events in the sisters’ lives — small, perhaps, but thoroughly parsed and observed by a writer with a poet’s eye and mentality… Losing My Sister is the kind of honest, clear-eyed memoir that asks readers to be open to their own experiences, and perhaps even learn something new about themselves. That’s a high calling for, and a lot to ask of, a family memoir. Goldman shows in this splendidly subtle work that she’s more than up to the task.”
~ Creative Loafing

Losing My Sister reads like a vivid novel, as tensions and conflicts build to a climax. Goldman raises the familial and personal to reach universal themes: sibling rivalry, the tensions as individuals grow and change, the inevitable sorrow of watching one’s strong, perfect parents age, weaken and die, the ‘mystery of individuality and connection’ that unites and divides siblings.”
~ Wilmington Star-News

Listed under “Great Ideas for Gifts for Readers”
~ The Charlotte Observer
~ Raleigh News & Observer

“N.C. novelist, poet and memoirist Judy Goldman is as brave — maybe braver — than [Thomas] Wolfe. Her memoir Losing My Sister is a candid, forthright and often painful examination of the complex emotions surrounding the death of her parents and older sibling — daunting experiences that she confronts without the protective cloak of fiction…. A compelling story of loss, guilt and forgiveness…. Goldman writes with objectivity and compassion and there’s no attempt at shade-tree philosophy, only the writer’s brave and honest response to human experience.”
~ O. Henry Magazine

“A vivid memoir… Losing My Sister is a tribute from one sister to another — a sorrowful, but proud grieving.”
~ Story Circle Book Reviews

“For anyone with siblings, the complexity of maintaining a healthy relationship, especially while taking care of ailing parents, will resonate.”
~ The Post and Courier, Charleston, SC

“Goldman writes with a reflective honesty and a touching poignancy…. This is a well-written and introspective look at the connection of family, the universality of relationship, and the ways in which we break away (or don’t) from the long-ingrained expectation of who we are, especially in relation to our siblings.”
~ BookNAround

“This book is poignant and heartbreaking but also inspirational. It made me hug my family a little bit closer.”
~ Jenny Lawson, New York Times best-selling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

“Judy Goldman’s Losing My Sister is a big, wise, heart-squeezing book. It puts between hard covers what I’d thought inarticulable — an act not unlike giving flesh to a shadow. This book will help a lot of people — people who are hurting for excellent prose, and people who are just hurting.”
~ Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

“A moving, gracefully told story of memory, sisters, and the way that love can bridge tragedy.”
~ Caroline Leavitt, New York Times best-selling author of Pictures of You

“Judy Goldman navigates the bumpy, fierce love that she shares with her sister with equal parts passion and compassion. A memorable story of love and loss.”
~ Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle and the memoir Comfort: A Journey through Grief

“In this finely wrought and moving memoir, Goldman explores in exquisite detail the small and large acts of love between sisters — and, indeed, among all family members. She is able to guide us through the complex emotions of death, loss, and intimacy because her own heart, as well as her writing, is as big and profound as the word love.”
~ Sue William Silverman, author of Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir

“What this book does — brilliantly — is suggest in the very rhythm of its telling the messiness and formlessness of relationships and grief, and the redemptive possibility of arranging some order from the chaos of existence. You cannot read this book and not be moved by its honesty and grace.”
~ Michael Parker, author of The Watery Part of the World

“Judy Goldman deeply loved her sister. She tells us why, she tells us how, and she tells us how much loving hurts in this deeply affecting examination of a special sister bond broken many times before it is — at last and forever — restored.”
~ Beth Kephart, author of Small Damages and National Book Award finalist A Slant of the Sun

“There is a great luminous beauty to Judy Goldman’s writing that delights me. Few writers in America have ever written with such passion and insight about the joys and great perils of family life.”
~ Pat Conroy