On a February morning, Danielle Crittenden received the call no parent can prepare for: Her thirty-two-year-old daughter Miranda had been found dead in her Brooklyn apartment. 

In an instant, Crittenden's world split in two: the life before, and the life that must somehow continue after. In Dispatches from Grief, Crittenden maps the landscape of loss with a journalist’s eye and a mother’s heart, chronicling not only the shattering impact of a child’s death but the strange afterlife of grief itself—how it reshapes friendships, routines, and the very sense of self.

With honesty and grace, Crittenden captures grief in its terrible specificity—the police call, the burial dress, the well-meaning “griefsplaining”—as well as love in its most distilled form. Written with luminous prose and dark humor, Dispatches from Grief is both a singular portrait of loss and a universal meditation on love’s aftermath, offering true companionship to anyone who has loved deeply and lost profoundly.

A memoir of heartbreaking beauty and rare candor, Dispatches from Grief is a portrait of one mother’s devastation and a testament to the human capacity for endurance and love.

● An extraordinary literary memoir in the tradition of Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air, C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed, and Sonali Deraniyagala's Wave, with unflinching honesty about the specific devastation of losing an adult child.
● Built-in media momentum: Builds on the success of David Frum's acclaimed Atlantic feature "Miranda’s Last Gift" (May 2024), with an exclusive excerpt by Danielle Crittenden scheduled in The Atlantic at publication. The Frums' combined platform reaches millions of readers across political, cultural, and literary spheres.
● Fills a critical gap: Expands the literature of grief beyond spousal and parental loss to the uncharted terrain of losing an adult child—an experience both universal and largely unspoken.
● Practical wisdom delivered with the precision of a storyteller: Offers concrete guidance on navigating acute grief—from EMDR therapy to Jewish mourning rituals to the “bureaucracy of death”—rendered with the emotional nuance and intellectual rigor of a seasoned journalist.
● Multiple audience entry points:
- Literary memoir readers seeking the next Didion or Kalanithi
- Bereaved parents searching for companionship in grief
- Jewish readers interested in contemporary explorations of faith and ritual
- Book clubs drawn to emotionally rich, discussion-worthy narratives
- Caregivers and medical advocates learning from Miranda's story
- Anyone grappling with mortality, meaning, and resilience
● Evergreen appeal. Grief is timeless. This memoir will remain relevant for years as a resource for the newly bereaved and those who support them; libraries, hospices, grief counselors, and clergy will keep it in circulation.
● Events-ready author. Danielle is an experienced speaker comfortable with bookstores, synagogues, women's conferences, grief workshops, and media appearances. She brings authenticity and composure to difficult conversations about loss.