Other People's Words

Friendship, Loss and the Conversations that Never End

By: Lissa Soep

Narrated by: Lissa Soep

An illuminating, intricately woven memoir about friendships, loss, and language—a stunning affirmation of the conversations that shape and sustain us, even in the presence of death

Lissa Soep lost two friends in quick succession. Christine died slowly, from a mysterious illness, while Jonnie died suddenly, too young. In the ten years since, Soep has found herself among those left behind—spouses, lovers, family, friends—whose grief could have rendered them silent, at a loss for words. Instead, she has discovered the opposite: a wild and inexhaustible dialogue unleashed by their absence.

Other People’s Words is an incandescent tribute to deep friendship, honoring this lasting bond that has no special name and showing us how we can both cherish and grieve our loved ones through the words that have described and defined our lifetimes. Soep traces intimacy and longing through everyday conversations, in fragments of text messages, letters, postcards, emails, poems, voicemails. Inspired by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea that our language is “overflowing with other people’s words,” Soep realizes that her friends’ words, remembered and imagined, are portals to other times and places, to other versions of ourselves and the ones we love. Dialogues do not end when a relationship or person is gone; they accrue new layers of meaning, continuing to echo, speak, and guide us forward.

As Soep discovers through this tapestry of conversations, language—as with love—is boundless. Our words are never locked into a single moment or limited to a single lifetime; they contain an “inner infinity.” Other People’s Words is an intimate, original, and profoundly generous look at the power of language to nurture life amid the wreckage of loss, in this moment and beyond.

Featuring a bonus interview with the author, Mercy Carbonell and Emily Newmann.

©2024 Lissa Soep (P)2024 Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks

Undefinable.

The plot and the characters are real, but at times reads like a page-turner fiction you miss way before the book is out of words. The reading by the author is soothing and the production is animated which is refreshingly novel. I learned so much and believe I will be a better person for having read this book. I am inspired to satisfy my longing for more from the people in the book by delving into the works of Bakhtin. Read it and you will, too!

Beautiful .. .. beautiful .. .. ..

Thank you for this. As you have just finished reading it to me, again please. Already your words flow through me and yet settle.

The Comfort in Talking to Ghosts

A wonderful, hopeful story of friendship and grief, and how language works in unexpected ways.

Not really a fan

Although a sweet story and well written, it was not so much a “profoundly generous look at the power of language to nurture life” inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin, as the description suggests. It was simply a lovely tribute telling readers about her two friends that died. I struggled to get through it.