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A review by scribepub
The Museum of Words: A Memoir of Language, Writing, and Mortality by Georgia Blain
[A] passionate, piercingly observed farewell to what Blain loved most in life … its fragile strength, depth of insight and sheer hard-won existence make it a book to be read, treasured and shared as the parting gift it is.
Books+Publishing, Four Stars
A fine short memoir that looks both inward and outward to tell a patchwork story of four women and their shifting relationships with one another and with words, their medium for living … She does not try to make sense of what was happening and does not rail against fate’s cruelty. She does not argue for voluntary euthanasia and even notes that her mother, once an advocate, went quiet on the subject after she became ill. Blain simply continues to write, her voice faltering only occasionally, until her final sentence.
Susan Wyndham, Weekend Australian
A powerful meditation on the power of language and writing … wise, tender, and heart-rending.
Nicole Abadee, AFR
Blain seamlessly reveals joys and complications of her family, and manages to provide some keen insights into the art and graft of telling stories … Museum is calm and tender and wise and brisk.
The Listener
The Museum of Words is a very powerful, private essay on the end of being, invested with an unshakeable sense of presence, of fellow-humanity. Also with true verbal beauty and lyrical evocativeness. With her last book Blain proves that one can indeed, and most significantly, “go gently into that good night”.
Mika Provata-Carlone, Bookanista
The paradox of writing about life while trying to live it, a perspective that perhaps comes only from looking back from the end.
Katy Hershberger, Shelf Awareness
Books+Publishing, Four Stars
A fine short memoir that looks both inward and outward to tell a patchwork story of four women and their shifting relationships with one another and with words, their medium for living … She does not try to make sense of what was happening and does not rail against fate’s cruelty. She does not argue for voluntary euthanasia and even notes that her mother, once an advocate, went quiet on the subject after she became ill. Blain simply continues to write, her voice faltering only occasionally, until her final sentence.
Susan Wyndham, Weekend Australian
A powerful meditation on the power of language and writing … wise, tender, and heart-rending.
Nicole Abadee, AFR
Blain seamlessly reveals joys and complications of her family, and manages to provide some keen insights into the art and graft of telling stories … Museum is calm and tender and wise and brisk.
The Listener
The Museum of Words is a very powerful, private essay on the end of being, invested with an unshakeable sense of presence, of fellow-humanity. Also with true verbal beauty and lyrical evocativeness. With her last book Blain proves that one can indeed, and most significantly, “go gently into that good night”.
Mika Provata-Carlone, Bookanista
The paradox of writing about life while trying to live it, a perspective that perhaps comes only from looking back from the end.
Katy Hershberger, Shelf Awareness