Reviews
The Silence of Your Name: The Afterlife of a Suicide
About this book Buy online“The Silence of Your Name is a moving and heartbreaking memoir, a beautiful and haunting exploration of love and loss — and love again.” Alice Hoffman, The Book of Magic
“A rare form of memoir. Deeply introspective, insightful, surprising, gripping—and gorgeously written.” Taiye Selasi, Ghana Must Go
“An eloquent countermove against the erasure that follows a suicide, Alexandra Marshall’s tender, layered memoir is an exploration of how her first husband’s death shaped her without being allowed to entirely define her. The burnished clarity of her narrative is an honor to him, to herself, and to her readers.” Joan Wickersham, National Book Award finalist for The Suicide Index
“Already a successful novelist, Alexandra Marshall has written a thrilling memoir that redefines the genre. It pairs diversity with aristocracy in an unprecedented way. Everyone who wants to write should read this book!” Susan Cheever, Drinking in America: Our Secret History
“Alexandra Marshall’s powerful and beautifully moving memoir is a courageous and compassionate meditation on life and one woman’s journey to make sense of a shocking loss, while also paying generous attention to the lives around her and to the future.” Jill McCorkle, Hieroglyphics
“Marshall is relentless in her quest for understanding and release from grief and guilt. The journey takes a lifetime, but wisdom comes incrementally and her readers partake eagerly at each stage until we, too, have learned that grief may be transformed into love—and brilliant, soothing prose.” Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winner for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
Slideshow
-
Mom and Dad on their honeymoon. -
Alexandra meeting her father at age 15 months. -
Alexandra at 21 months. -
Alexandra’s and Tim’s wedding. -
Alexandra and Tim hammering. -
Harry and Caresse, wedding day, 1922. -
Josie and Bart, wedding day, 1929. -
Josie and Bart, wedding party, 1929. -
A portrait of Josephine. -
Bart on the Golden Rule. -
Alexandra’s author photo for Gus in Bronze. -
Alexandra with James Carroll on roof deck, Myrtle Street. -
Dad and Lizzy. -
Pat and Lizzy. (Photo credit: Patricia Pingree) -
Will and Waldo. -
Busia Family. -
Queen Mother, Accra, 2000. -
Alexandra with Chief and Queen Mother, Wenchi, 2016 -
Queen Mother Tribute Cover. -
Alexandra with Nana Akua and Nana Abena, Wenchi, 2016. -
Alexandra with James Carroll. -
Queen Mother, In Loving Memory.
Video
Harvard Bookstore hosted a conversation with Alexandra and author Megan Marshall in November 2021 discussing The Silence of Your Name.
Audio
Arrowsmith Press interviewed Alexandra in November 2021 about the craft of writing and The Silence of Your Name.
The Court of Common Pleas
About this book Buy online“In this finely mapped novel, Alexandra Marshall tracks the twists and turns taken by [Audrey and Gregory Brennan] when they confront unexpected tragedy and opportunity. With its graceful, frequent changes in point of view, the book possesses unusual integrity; all the well-drawn characters have their say, and the resulting story resists easy labeling. The Court of Common Pleas is a precise travelogue through territory that’s notoriously difficult to chart—the ways intelligent people navigate life’s unexpected detours and draw on their shared history to make sense of it all.” Kimberly B. Marlowe, The New York Times Book Review
“In The Court of Common Pleas the novelist Alexandra Marshall gives us a sensitive portrait of a contented marriage suddenly in crisis as, without warning, a husband and wife—both mature, reasonable, loving people who have walked through life side by side—realize that they have arrived in different places. ...With tact and sympathy tempering her authorial tough-mindedness, Marshall creates a cast of realistically flawed characters caught up in a realistically ambiguous story. Our last glimpse of the Brennans is at a moment of carefully negotiated equilibrium, not to be confused with the pat happy ending a less honest novelist would have tossed our way after making us care so much about these people.” Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe
“With an unusual writing style that darts in and out of her characters’ private thoughts like a shuttle in the hands of a master weaver, Alexandra Marshall has written a fine and moving narrative of a good marriage about to unravel in the throes of a midlife crisis. The Court of Common Pleas is a novel of unusual warmth and humanity.” Anita Shreve
“Once again, Alexandra Marshall practices her specialty—the diagnosis of contemporary marriage—and she makes us care about this husband and wife, and about their problem that serves as a lens through which we see how to unravel, not cut, the knottedness of middle-aged love. The wisdom here is useful, the prose is lithe, and the story is irresistible.” Frederick Busch
“The Court of Common Pleas is a vivid dispatch from the guerilla war called marriage, the combat zone where the outcome is ever in doubt. A fine, vibrant novel.” Ward Just
Gus in Bronze
About this book Buy online“Marshall has the essential novelist’s gift ... the creation of vivid characters... Gus in Bronze is a Love Story about grown-ups, written by somebody with a grown-up mind.” Katha Pollitt, The New York Times Book Review
“This is a most moving book, spare and taut, peopled with characters one cares about, dramatic and understated.” Charles H. Gold, Chicago Daily News
Something Borrowed
About this book Buy online“Marshall is that true rarity, a novelist full of wise observations, mordant wit and a fine comic sense. ... A mixture of rue and humor and wistful speculation that explores what the epigraph calls the “ache of marriage,” Something Borrowed is a pleasure to read.” San Francisco Chronicle
“Marshall brilliantly anatomizes what Chaucer’s Wife of Bath called the ‘wo that is marriage,’ ...[and] deftly provides her characters with options and opportunities to behave well.” Baltimore Sun
“A glorious portrait of marriage, divorce, and true love. Something Borrowed takes on the complex and fascinating web that is domestic life and gets it right every time.” Alice Hoffman
“This is a wonderful book, a beautiful work of fiction. It’s funny, sexy, sad, and wise...” Christopher Tilghman
“Finally, a book about grown-ups. Alexandra Marshall has a knowing eye for families—neither nuclear nor smoothly blended—who have been through the Cuisinart of divorce. Something Borrowed is a welcome album of mixed emotions at midlife.” Ellen Goodman
The Brass Bed
About this book Buy online“Alexandra Marshall’s new novel is full of everything I love about novels. It is one of the few books I have read in a long time that I can honestly say I didn’t want to end, except for the fact that I was dying to know how it came out.” The Boston Globe
“A beautiful novel ...captivating, humorous and tender ...a joyous affirmation.” Newsday
Tender Offer
About this book Buy online“Eclectic, insightful observations and wry humor ...” People Magazine
“Alexandra Marshall compresses a story as revealing and relevant as Ordinary People with insights which are fresh and imaginatively expressed.” Boston Herald
Still Waters
About this book Buy online“Marshall’s prose is elegant and vibrant and fresh. ... The sentences gleam like crystal.” Lee Grove, Boston Magazine
“Alexandra Marshall’s account of her year-long observation of a New England beaver pond shows that those waters are anything but still. The pond and its environs brim with life as does the affecting narrative written with a poet’s feeling and a scientist’s attention to detail. Not since Thoreau have experiences surrounding a Massachusetts pond been as worthy of our attention.” The Christian Science Monitor (Editor’s Choice)
“The Silence of Your Name is a moving and heartbreaking memoir, a beautiful and haunting exploration of love and loss — and love again.” Alice Hoffman, The Book of Magic
“A rare form of memoir. Deeply introspective, insightful, surprising, gripping—and gorgeously written.” Taiye Selasi, Ghana Must Go
“An eloquent countermove against the erasure that follows a suicide, Alexandra Marshall’s tender, layered memoir is an exploration of how her first husband’s death shaped her without being allowed to entirely define her. The burnished clarity of her narrative is an honor to him, to herself, and to her readers.” Joan Wickersham, National Book Award finalist for The Suicide Index
“Already a successful novelist, Alexandra Marshall has written a thrilling memoir that redefines the genre. It pairs diversity with aristocracy in an unprecedented way. Everyone who wants to write should read this book!” Susan Cheever, Drinking in America: Our Secret History
“Alexandra Marshall’s powerful and beautifully moving memoir is a courageous and compassionate meditation on life and one woman’s journey to make sense of a shocking loss, while also paying generous attention to the lives around her and to the future.” Jill McCorkle, Hieroglyphics
“Marshall is relentless in her quest for understanding and release from grief and guilt. The journey takes a lifetime, but wisdom comes incrementally and her readers partake eagerly at each stage until we, too, have learned that grief may be transformed into love—and brilliant, soothing prose.” Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winner for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
Slideshow
-
Mom and Dad on their honeymoon. -
Alexandra meeting her father at age 15 months. -
Alexandra at 21 months. -
Alexandra’s and Tim’s wedding. -
Alexandra and Tim hammering. -
Harry and Caresse, wedding day, 1922. -
Josie and Bart, wedding day, 1929. -
Josie and Bart, wedding party, 1929. -
A portrait of Josephine. -
Bart on the Golden Rule. -
Alexandra’s author photo for Gus in Bronze. -
Alexandra with James Carroll on roof deck, Myrtle Street. -
Dad and Lizzy. -
Pat and Lizzy. (Photo credit: Patricia Pingree) -
Will and Waldo. -
Busia Family. -
Queen Mother, Accra, 2000. -
Alexandra with Chief and Queen Mother, Wenchi, 2016 -
Queen Mother Tribute Cover. -
Alexandra with Nana Akua and Nana Abena, Wenchi, 2016. -
Alexandra with James Carroll. -
Queen Mother, In Loving Memory.
Video
Harvard Bookstore hosted a conversation with Alexandra and author Megan Marshall in November 2021 discussing The Silence of Your Name.
Audio
Arrowsmith Press interviewed Alexandra in November 2021 about the craft of writing and The Silence of Your Name.
“In this finely mapped novel, Alexandra Marshall tracks the twists and turns taken by [Audrey and Gregory Brennan] when they confront unexpected tragedy and opportunity. With its graceful, frequent changes in point of view, the book possesses unusual integrity; all the well-drawn characters have their say, and the resulting story resists easy labeling. The Court of Common Pleas is a precise travelogue through territory that’s notoriously difficult to chart—the ways intelligent people navigate life’s unexpected detours and draw on their shared history to make sense of it all.” Kimberly B. Marlowe, The New York Times Book Review
“In The Court of Common Pleas the novelist Alexandra Marshall gives us a sensitive portrait of a contented marriage suddenly in crisis as, without warning, a husband and wife—both mature, reasonable, loving people who have walked through life side by side—realize that they have arrived in different places. ...With tact and sympathy tempering her authorial tough-mindedness, Marshall creates a cast of realistically flawed characters caught up in a realistically ambiguous story. Our last glimpse of the Brennans is at a moment of carefully negotiated equilibrium, not to be confused with the pat happy ending a less honest novelist would have tossed our way after making us care so much about these people.” Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe
“With an unusual writing style that darts in and out of her characters’ private thoughts like a shuttle in the hands of a master weaver, Alexandra Marshall has written a fine and moving narrative of a good marriage about to unravel in the throes of a midlife crisis. The Court of Common Pleas is a novel of unusual warmth and humanity.” Anita Shreve
“Once again, Alexandra Marshall practices her specialty—the diagnosis of contemporary marriage—and she makes us care about this husband and wife, and about their problem that serves as a lens through which we see how to unravel, not cut, the knottedness of middle-aged love. The wisdom here is useful, the prose is lithe, and the story is irresistible.” Frederick Busch
“The Court of Common Pleas is a vivid dispatch from the guerilla war called marriage, the combat zone where the outcome is ever in doubt. A fine, vibrant novel.” Ward Just
“Marshall has the essential novelist’s gift ... the creation of vivid characters... Gus in Bronze is a Love Story about grown-ups, written by somebody with a grown-up mind.” Katha Pollitt, The New York Times Book Review
“This is a most moving book, spare and taut, peopled with characters one cares about, dramatic and understated.” Charles H. Gold, Chicago Daily News
“Marshall is that true rarity, a novelist full of wise observations, mordant wit and a fine comic sense. ... A mixture of rue and humor and wistful speculation that explores what the epigraph calls the “ache of marriage,” Something Borrowed is a pleasure to read.” San Francisco Chronicle
“Marshall brilliantly anatomizes what Chaucer’s Wife of Bath called the ‘wo that is marriage,’ ...[and] deftly provides her characters with options and opportunities to behave well.” Baltimore Sun
“A glorious portrait of marriage, divorce, and true love. Something Borrowed takes on the complex and fascinating web that is domestic life and gets it right every time.” Alice Hoffman
“This is a wonderful book, a beautiful work of fiction. It’s funny, sexy, sad, and wise...” Christopher Tilghman
“Finally, a book about grown-ups. Alexandra Marshall has a knowing eye for families—neither nuclear nor smoothly blended—who have been through the Cuisinart of divorce. Something Borrowed is a welcome album of mixed emotions at midlife.” Ellen Goodman
“Alexandra Marshall’s new novel is full of everything I love about novels. It is one of the few books I have read in a long time that I can honestly say I didn’t want to end, except for the fact that I was dying to know how it came out.” The Boston Globe
“A beautiful novel ...captivating, humorous and tender ...a joyous affirmation.” Newsday
“Eclectic, insightful observations and wry humor ...” People Magazine
“Alexandra Marshall compresses a story as revealing and relevant as Ordinary People with insights which are fresh and imaginatively expressed.” Boston Herald
“Marshall’s prose is elegant and vibrant and fresh. ... The sentences gleam like crystal.” Lee Grove, Boston Magazine
“Alexandra Marshall’s account of her year-long observation of a New England beaver pond shows that those waters are anything but still. The pond and its environs brim with life as does the affecting narrative written with a poet’s feeling and a scientist’s attention to detail. Not since Thoreau have experiences surrounding a Massachusetts pond been as worthy of our attention.” The Christian Science Monitor (Editor’s Choice)