The Loneliest Places

Loss, Grief, and the Long Journey Home

By: Rachel Dickinson

Narrated by: Rachel Dickinson

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

The essays of The Loneliest Places began as a chronicle of Rachel Dickinson’s life after her son’s suicide. The pieces became much more. Dickinson writes the unimaginable and terrifying facts of heart-breaking loss. In The Loneliest Places she tells stories from her months on the run, fleeing her grief and herself, as she escapes to Iceland and the Falkland Islands―as far as possible from the memories of her dead son, Jack. She frankly relates the paralyzing emotion that sometimes left her trapped in her home, confined to a single chair, helplessly isolated.

The tales from these years are bleak and Dickinson’s journey home, back to her changed self and fractured family, is lonely. Conjuring Emily Dickinson, she describes, though, how hope was sighted, allowed to perch, and then, remarkably, made actual.

©2022 Rachel Dickinson (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Frank and Honest

Rachel Dickinson pulls no punches when she describes her own reaction and actions after the suicide of her son. She tells us frankly how she felt and what she did even though she might later wish she’d taken different roads in her grief. I deeply admire people who can see and tell the truth about themselves and help us see our own truths as we follow along. Beautiful writing on a painful, painful subject.

Loss, Grief, and the Balm of Travel

I took a travel writing course from Rachel in Dryden years ago ... I wrote about past trips but became convinced I needed to get out. And I did, in my own ways.

I've often used a word -- mundivagant -- to describe myself. One who "travels the world, feels the pull of, the escape to, places where one can be unknown, anonymous".

Actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy's "The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down" is the only writer to blend solo travel, avoidance, and slow resolution in a powerful way.

Little did I know Rachel would write on these themes after a tragedy no parent should bear.

I chose the Audible copy of her book. I heard the grief and pain of a kindred spirit. Her need, her drive to be away from tragedy. From being known. The anger mixed with the inability to be there for the living.

Her travel choices --like mine -- are often less standard. Places full of lesser known stories and history.

This audio book is read by the author. I hear her familiar voice, and feel the cracks of all stages of grief and the small cracks of light that get into the heart.

Highly recommend.