“Unveiling Grief: Eiren Caffall Reveals the Hidden Wisdom in ‘The Mourner’s Bestiary'”
AE: I can see it here. Yeah.
EC: I’d never really thought of it as something that could be propulsive and emotional. And I love many memoirs that do that. I just didn’t think I could do it. When I finished the last draft, that was the version I used to apply for the Whiting—the first fifty pages that my editor had never seen. Gina looked at it and said, “This is better. I don’t think the publisher understands that they didn’t buy this book, but this is a better book than what they bought.” Most people don’t have the freedom to do that. I wouldn’t do it that way again. I would get to the propulsive, fully realized book before I tried to sell it.
