Unveiling Hidden Worlds: How Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ The Flower Bearers Transforms Grief Into Art
Riveted, I read how Griffiths somehow managed to survive—not without speed bumps—her complex grief. In the hands of a less gifted writer, this portion of the memoir may have read like self pity at Rushdie’s expense. But Griffiths’ retelling balances the entwined story of two people fighting to survive in such a way that the reader wants to set up a meal train and offer to walk their dog so they can focus on recovering not just their health but their fragile, young marriage.
At the end of The Flower Bearers, Griffiths turns for comfort to a tribute her close friend Aisha Moon wrote about Lucille Clifton. Moon hailed Clifton’s “permission to keep it real, to be shameless and unabashed. To be vulnerable as a sign of strength. To wonder and to be amazed.”
