Fi: A Memoir of My Son by Alexandra Fuller

Fi: A Memoir of My Son Reviews

• 
  Liralen

  All parents who hear of Fi's death have told me this: I wouldn't survive the death of my child, as if my child's death must therefore have been a lesser death than the death of their child would be. Or me, as if I must be a less grief-stricken parent than they would be, if it happened to them. I tell them that I didn't survive and also that I did. Both things happened. (loc. 1358*)
  
  Alexandra Fuller was still grieving the loss of her father when the unthinkable happened—her son Fi died suddenly, unexpectedly, still in the prime of his youth. And Fuller came undone, because what else can you do when that happens?
  
  This is a grief memoir—full stop. Fuller is a hell of a writer, which is not news. Here she spills herself broken onto the page: questioning how she can possibly be expected to survive, pulling from book after book and writer after writer to articulate the depths of her loss and apply balm to her soul. She takes to the mountains and the sky, to the ocean and a grief retreat and a meditation retreat, not in some sort of targeted quest but because the only thing she can do is give her life over to grief, and to find new rhythms for it.
  
  It's worse in town, in the condo, my restlessness, my panic. Only the wild—even the scorched, diminished, smoke-hazed wild—seems conducive to my unwieldy grief. Grand enough to be the grief, to soak up the grief, to reflect it back at me, my feelings as thunder, wind, wildfire. In the mountains, I'd understood the warp and weft of my grief; I'd accepted its weather. In the mountains my grief was shouted back at me with praise and with majesty, in the oldest, most sovereign sense of that word. (loc. 1628)
  
  I have not read
  Travel Light, Move Fast, Fuller's memoir about her father's death, but Fi died when she was partway through writing it, and there's no way on earth that that didn't reset the shape of that book. Someday I'll pick that up too, because I'm curious about how they overlap and how they don't, and also because I don't think it's possible for Fuller to write a book that is anything other than dramatic and sharp and so vivid it hurts.
  
  Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
  
  *I read an ARC, and quotes may not be final.
• 
  Numidica

  “Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy”. This memoir of her son, and of the process of dealing with her grief at his death, is one of the best observations of grief I have read. As one would well understand, Ms. Fuller was completely shattered when her son died suddenly of a seizure, in his sleep. He had had one previous seizure episode, relatively minor in nature, but serious enough to be checked by a doctor, who found no cause for the event, and saw no reason to be concerned for Fi's future health.
  
  As she describes it, the family of her two daughters, herself, and Fi were exceptionally close, and Fi was an outstanding person in every way, a leader, an athlete, a scholar, a compassionate young man, and this of course made his death even harder to take. Alexandra’s first response to the news was literally to want to die. Only the knowledge that her daughters needed her moderated the intense desire to drop dead, but she was non-functioning, shattered, and abed for weeks. Then gradually, with help from friends, over a period of months, she moved back toward the land of the living, and became functional again, but she was not healed, she was not well. Her daughters were, if not as distraught as she was, then at least depressed; Fi had been their beloved brother and friend, and just as Ms. Fuller could not conceive of a future without Fi, neither could they.
  
  Fuller moved to a yurt in a meadow to be closer to nature, and she found this helped her bear the pain of loss much better than her previous existence in a condominium apartment. Having grown up living an out-of-doors life in Africa, it makes sense that nature would be a healing force for her. It certainly is for me. Finally, a friend who owned a house in Hawaii convinced her to go there and live for a month with her daughters and her former girlfriend, and that month finally brought her and her daughters sufficiently out of mourning, that they finally, for the first time since Fi’s death, laughed.
  
  I cannot fathom how bad it must be to lose a child, it simply beggars the imagination of any parent. And yet as Ms. Fuller points out, from our earliest existence, parents have lost children. Just as I have never stopped missing my father, Alexandra Fuller will never stop mourning her son, but she explains how she arrived at a point where she could live with grief, and yet not be its slave.
• 
  Tania

  
  Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood will always be one of my favourite memoirs. Fi, the author's latest release reminds me why this is. Alexandra Fuller's writing is raw, intense, poetic, brave and unexpectedly funny even when dealing with the unexpected death of her twenty-one-year-old son. I don't think I've read another biography where the author is so brutally honest about who they are - showing the good, the bad and the ugly.
  

  "...to accept the death of a loved one is to arrive at the knowledge that love itself cannot die or change or end."
• 
  Kasa Cotugno

  There is no word for a person who has lost a child, even one fully grown to adulthood. They are still your child. There is the term widow, widower, but no term exists in English for that reversal of nature when a parent outlives a child. Grief takes over, and the memory of that person who a parent has known since before birth haunt and flood, and all aspects of that person recur. When Alexandra Fuller's son, aged 21, dies in his sleep, she and the entire family is encompassed by grief. Gifted with a poet's soul, she adds to her memoirs with this depiction of that grief, shattering and redemptive at the same time.
• 
  Kerry

  I often given memoirs 5 stars as I believe a memoir is personal and should be respected as someone's story. That said this is a great piece of writing as well as a great memoir.
  
  I've read a lot of Fuller's writing beginning with Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight and continuing with her books that give us a glimpse of her life in Africa and Wyoming. I've always found not only great story telling but profound words as well. Yet I was a little hesitant to pick up this latest book about the death of her son just a few years ago. Certainly the scariest thing to think or read about for a parent is the death of a child. I was not sure I wanted to read over 200 pages of how a mother weathered this devastation. After just a few pages I knew it would be a special book about living, finding a way through difficult times and learning.
  
  I especially liked several of the passages about walking, they spoke to me as I am a consummate walker.
  "If I follow any religion it's walking. The daily practice of which brings me to a fresh understanding of God."
  
  Fuller uses physical activity and the great outdoors to deal and work through her profound grief. She imparts her own wisdom learned and quotes frequently from others.
  
  "What saves a man is to take a step. Than another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it." Antonine de Saint-Exupery."
• 
  Emma Scott

  This book took some getting into. Like rappelling into her grief that is so familiar and yet still so individualized. I might write a better review but for now, five big stars and gratitude is all I got.
• 
  Farrah

  Was this a memoir? It just felt like an extended stream of consciousness ramble.
• 
  Tesilyaraven

  Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by this author is probably one of my top five memoirs of all time and my favorite writing by this author. But I found myself skim-reading Fi. Though there were tender reflections on her playful and strong philosophy of parenting, deep friendships, clever writing, and heartbreaking journey the book is (understandably) hyper-focused on the grief of losing her son as a young adult. Weaves in her childhood in South Africa and all the people and rituals that got her through the first months and year…but also kind of incoherent and almost microscopically specific details…
• 
  Ashley

  Another outstanding and rare offering from one of the most underappreciated writers of our time. Not enjoyable in the way her other work is "enjoyable", for obvious reasons; instead, we're served a double-helping of wisdom. Death & grief at death are so anathema in modern American culture reading a book like this feels like a radical act. Writing it certainly was.
• 
  Laura Pritchett

  This newest memoir is fantastic. Heartbreaking, yes, and also about nature and healing and family. She is one of the most raw and authentic voices out there. I thank her for her honesty. I adore ALL her memoirs -- and who she is as a person.
• 
  Chantal

  4.5 rounded to 5 stars
  
  “Let the weather come, and come. I will stand.”
  
  Alexandra Fuller is an “auto-read” author for me. Anything they write, I will read.
  
  The story of Fi (pronounced “fee”) is of Fuller’s son who passes away unexpectedly in his early twenties. The author takes us through their grief in Wyoming, New Mexico, and Alberta, while trying to juggle her new relationship with a woman, and with her two remaining children. It is raw, emotional, and beautiful. The audiobook is narrated by Fuller, themself. Their voice and tone really makes the story come alive, and connects you to her pain, that much more.
  
  Worth the read if you can handle the emotions.
  
  (I received this ALC via NetGalley in return for an honest review. Thank you.)
• 
  Barbara Tsipouras

  I should have know that this book will trigger my own depression. It is sad, devastating and very personal. Don't read it if you have lost somebody you love or if you already suffer of depression.
• 
  Rita Brutsch

  Alexandra Fuller is one of my favorite authors. After reading all six book about her family and loving them I was eager to read her newest book describing her life after the loss of her son. Although well written as always this was my least favorite book so far. I understand her grief was bottomless but many people have to deal with grief and eventually go back to work and move on.
• 
  Linda

  Of course, my heart is going to go out endlessly to a mother's unimaginable loss of a child and there is no right or wrong way for anyone to grieve, but as others commented, not only was it rambling, but ramblings were snippets of fairly appropriated content. I find it quite rich that many references were of indigenous Americans, meanwhile, Fuller fam is very tied up in the real estate business, owning or selling multiple properties on sacred land. My not so humble opinion is that that area has been completely desecrated by that trade. Generations of colonizers continue...
  
  Also ironic in quoting Chögyam Trungpa who famously wrote and spoke about “spiritual materialism”, which I found the book to be full of, seemingly cutting and pasting snippets of whatever practice fit the current mood. Which may be Fuller's point of no cultural blueprint of how to grieve. But I couldn't get past not the clearly privileged life, but more so, that she seems to believe she is not of that ilk. Can’t identify if it’s cluelessness, narcissism, detachment, but it was quite striking and incredibly off-putting - literally recommending that anyone who is grieving should take a few months off work and go to Hawaii (another colonized land). Maybe I’m bitter because I recently struggled just to pay for travel to my father's funeral let alone other expenses and income lost, which, of course, is what one does and wants to do, but this book seems like a victim of serious J Hole derangement syndrome and incredible lack of perspective on economic disparity, which one would think Fuller appreciated in Africa and in reality. Pity it doesn't translate here.
  
  I did appreciate that Fuller was blessed with such a caring, well-off community who supported her throughout this horrific time. Ultimately Fi sounded like a remarkable, lovely boy, and I truly hope his soul rests and soars in peace and wonder.
• 
  Karen Kline

  Alexandra Fuller knew grief. She was grieving the death of her father when her 21 year-old son, Fi, died in his sleep of a seizure. Every parent's nightmare. The ensuing days, weeks and months are an effluvious outpouring here by an accomplished writer who I already loved and respected for her book Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. Fuller's own mother lost three children of her own.
  
  
  When Fi dies, Fuller goes in search of herself and healing and processing of her grief. Fi was it would seem a golden boy and liked by all who knew him, and his two sisters are at the core of the author's spirit to carry on as well as a window into their grief as siblings. Setting is key to Fuller's journey as she leaves her depressing condo to go to the mountains of Wyoming. She sojourns to a grief camp in New Mexico. She and her former girlfriend and Fuller's daughters and spend a month at friends' vacation home in Hawaii.
  
  Somehow the outpouring of Fuller's experience is transporting and affecting. She has a Joan Dideon-esque way of channeling the time and words that helps the reader feel the grief and summon the feelings that come with such a brutal upheaval.
  
  This book is not just for those suffering. It's for all of us. We cannot live without knowing death. The book reminds us that we all have a responsibility to the grieving.
• 
  Christie Bane

  Why did I read TWO grief memoirs back to back? No one I love has died in many, many years! Anyway, this one is very sad but definitely a wide window into a terrible experience. The author's son, a young man just getting started with life out in the world, died in his sleep from a seizure. It was totally unexpected. The book is about how his mother and sisters recovered from the shock and started living again. I think I like to read these books because I feel like if I read enough of them, I will inoculate myself against the inevitable loss that every person will experience if they live long enough (unless, of course, they die first and everyone else has to deal with THEIR loss). Will and I refer to that as "winning," as in, "Whoever dies first wins." Because they don't have to deal with the loss of the other one.
• 
  Emily Goenner Munson

  Aching, complex, beautiful. Her son was a few months older than my oldest and died in the way I fear I’ll lose my second. So, close to my heart, or rather, close to the deepest fears of my heart. I haven’t lost a son, but I’ve come to the edge of that abyss twice, so close—3 millimeters in one case—. I hold them tight and never forget the depths. This book offers light, that should it happen, there might be a way through.
• 
  Ann

  Fuller writes abt grief in exceptionally beautiful (and sometimes funny) ways. What is amazing abt Fi and the brutal unexpected death of her son is the great community who rallies around her and the rest of her family as she muddles through. Would that everyone has such a community.
• 
  Nancy Mcdaniel

  I always love Alexandra Fuller's poetic, evocative writing, as I did in this book.
  I don't want to say too much because it would make me sound like an unkind and unsympathetic person. My mom died when I was 16 and my dad died when I was 36. So I have known loss, but never the loss of a child. So I couldn't identify with the intense, debilitating grief that Fuller felt. But it kind of bothered me that she couldn't even celebrate her daughter's birthday after Fi died. Anyway, my lack of understand of this unrelenting grief kind of got in the way of my loving this book, sorry to say.
  
• 
  Robyn

  Notables 2024 #40
• 
  Kristin

  Alexandra Fuller has an incredible gift, which carried me through this book. But I wished for a little less abstraction and more scenes.
• 
  Max Kelly

  I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am leaving this review of my own accord.
  
  This is one of the most beautiful memoirs I’ve ever encountered. I couldn’t ask for better writing, narration, reflection, and the list goes on. I would go so far as to say I have even found one of my new favorite authors.
  
  This work in particular has a special place in my heart, being that my grandmother and mother have both worked through the loss of a son/brother at a formative point in my life. I felt that this book is more of a companion to an object, as well as a mirror and a safety blanket. There’s something special in the conversations of uncertainty, anguish, and learning that we get from this book.
  
  I’m not going to forget this read any time soon.
• 
  Lily

  Powerful and challenging - but beautifully written as per usual with Alexandra Fuller. I felt like an extra round of edits could’ve helped as I noticed a few repetitive words/phrases. But it doesn’t take away from the power of her writing at all. AF is one of my favorite authors and I am glad she was able to turn this tragedy into something beautiful- this book
• 
  Judy

  Abandoned about halfway through. Too many wandering, unrelated conversations with old friends and distant relatives. The random, wandering nature of this book was making me crazy. It's perhaps unfair to feel this way about a memoir of grief, but....