Sloane Crosley: 'What to do when you lose a friend'

Crosley had been a publicist under Perreault's management at a publishing house in New York, where the two had established a deep, loyal friendship that extended well beyond her transition away from publicity into full-time writing. In the weeks and months following Perreault's death, Crosley read many self-help books on grief. None of them addressed the specific grief faced by a friend. There was advice on how to grieve for mothers, for fathers, sisters, children, spouses and lovers, but friends? Silence.

Perreault was such a fundamental part of her existence, so Crosley's dilemma, as she writes later in her book, was: "I was losing him and yet I couldn't get away from him." She tells BBC Culture that when it comes to grief over the suicide of a friend, "There's forums and groups online, but not for friends. Is there a book out there for 'What to do when you lose a friend'? Maybe, but not the major ones. They leave it out, and it was really unfortunate because a lot of my book is about the struggle on every level: how to process it, how to frame the past, and how to move forward. It's about the etiquette: what does one do when one's friend dies in that manner?"

"I always thought what I was writing would be for some manner of public consumption, but in the early stages I didn't know the shape of it."

The book – in a wink-and-nod to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) – is divided into Crosley's own stages, which defiantly don't include "acceptance" (denial, bargaining, anger, depression, afterward).

Perreault's death rocked the New York book industry. He was a respected veteran of publishing, having worked with renowned authors Joan Didion, Michael Ondaatje, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cheryl Strayed and Alexander McCall Smith over his 25-year career. In an obituary, publisher Anne Messitte described Perreault as a "beloved colleague – exuberant, funny, precocious, [and] smart". 

Crosley began writing about Perreault's death – and its impact on her – almost immediately after the event, though she later edited that material. Her book considers the chain of events that may or may not have some sort of meaning in the bigger frame of her life, and her relationship with Russell. A month before her friend's tragic death, Crosley's New York apartment was robbed, with a thief – or thieves – breaking into a vintage cabinet to steal jewellery that she had inherited from her grandmother.

Following the shock of Russell's death, the recent memory of the theft awakens a fury in Crosley that can only be calmed through hunting down her stolen jewellery and restoring some semblance of justice as her world teeters on the edge of chaos. When the pandemic hits soon afterwards, Crosley views events as a domino effect of disaster. Grief is for People is a book that feels unhealed in the semi-daze of grief that the author is making sense of in real time. Despite the turmoil of traumatic events (of varying degrees) occurring in such a brief period, Crosley was able to observe her own life from enough distance to document it.

"The suicide of a dear friend and his absence and, to a lesser extent, the violation and absence of my jewellery, those two events are flirting dangerously close to a horrific experience, but there's always a sliver where you can observe it with a writerly vibe. After Russell died, the book took off – it expanded [beyond the original notes on the robbery]."

Crosley adds, "There's a rawness to the book, [but] I'm dubious of writing that is just catharsis. Even in the depths of despair, one has the onus to entertain – not to laugh hysterically; it could be crying, it could be moving the reader. I'm conscious of that responsibility. All the raw emotion is in there… I was heartbroken, not eating, sleepless – there's something universal about grief."   

The loss of Perreault's presence in her life has been shattering, not least because under his loving, watchful eye she'd written hundreds of essays and two novels. She reflects in the book: "When it came to creating my own stories, I'd been playing for an audience of one for so long. Russell was my litmus test. Would this amuse him? Would he find it silly? I'd never published a word when he wasn't alive, when I didn't know him."

Immediate intimacy

Crosley acknowledges the fallibility of memory, the truth of her friendship as it really was, and how it seems in hindsight, as time passes and facts emerge. As readers, we are witnessing Crosley's grief at close quarters – the edges haven't been softened with time, the questions remain fresh.

Throughout, Crosley uses her friend's first name because, she says, it "brings this immediate intimacy that I want other people to have, because part of what was so daunting about the book is this sort of exhaustion at the prospect of describing this person, and how ridiculous it is because he's so fundamental to me, it feels like describing air".

Like all long-term friendships, Crosley and Perreault's was not perfect. She recognises that the enormity of their friendship, and Perreault himself, cannot be distilled entirely into this book.

"When you frame someone through this faulty medium, which any sort of art form is, you're giving yourself this incredibly imperfect tunnel that you're half-blind through, and then you come out but it's imperfect. So, I had to realise that I can't just 'IV' Russell into people through these pages. There's a part of the book where I write that he adopted every assistant on the floor of a publishing house, not just within department, as if they were his and sometimes this was against their wills."

Crosley reflects that, after his death, she understood that the compliments Perreault had lavished on colleagues now gave an indication of what he was missing in his own life.

"He used to be so complimentary, no matter what happened to us, you know? We were in our early and mid-20s, and if we got kicked out of our buildings or broken up with, or rejected from a fellowship or whatever someone wanted, he was effusive about our talent and our originality and our youth and our beauty and that was his way of assuring us not to worry, that we would find another job or another boyfriend or girlfriend, and you know, a better apartment would come through. Only in writing the book did I come to the realisation that he was like that because he had already dismissed himself, and sort of recused himself from that kind of category of person. And he felt that those adjectives just no longer applied to him."

She clarifies, "I feel like he assumed that beauty and all the time in the world had passed for him, that he'd never get it back."

Writing about the loss of a friend is not as clear-cut as writing about the loss of a family member, but Crosley admits she hasn't been in that situation so making comparisons is impossible. Certainly, there was no concern over compromised inheritance, at least.

"All I inherited from Russell is a stunning collection of YA romance novels from the 1980s and two broken lamps," she concedes. "I've never had a loss like this in my own family, so I don't know what's easier or not, but I would think writing about family might be easier because I wouldn't have to fight with myself for a claim of proximity to this person, or my right to write about this person. With a mother or sister, you've got literal skin – DNA – in the game. With a friend, I tried to be as honest as I can. This is someone's partner, someone's son, brother and uncle, and I am none of those people. As a friend, you have access to that person as a volunteer on this planet – everything you did with that person on this planet was voluntary. You continued to choose each other as friends, and the book is a portrait of friendship in general. A portrait of the time period and environment that fostered that friendship. [However], there have been times where he felt like a brother or a dad."

Is she any nearer to finding the answer to the question of what to do when you lose a friend? "I still don't know the answer," she says, "but I'm grateful that the question isn't answered or you wouldn't have this memoir." 

Crosley quotes one of Perault's favourite authors in summing up the role her book plays beyond her own making sense of events, and the solace she sought from both fiction and self-help guides after Perreault's death.

"To paraphrase a James Baldwin quote, 'You think your pain and heartbreak are unique in all the world, and then you read'. Russell was a huge James Baldwin fan, so it's funny that I'm botching that quote! When it comes to the literary world, there's almost nothing I can touch where Russell isn't associated."

Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley is published by MacMillan on 27 February

If you or anyone you know is affected by this story, here are some resources that can help. 

The International Association for Suicide Prevention has a list of global agencies that may also be able to provide immediate support.

In the UK and Ireland:

The Samaritans are open 24 hours a day. Call 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm) offers support to men. Call 0800 58 58 58 between 17:00 and 00:00 every day or visit their webchat page here.

In the US:

If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

In Australia:

Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or  chat online, nightly seven days a week.

In Canada:

If you are in crisis, call 1-833-456-4566 (4357) or text 45645. For more information about suicide prevention, visit Centre for suicide prevention.

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