Jennifer Senior, a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer at The Atlantic, sheds light on the human experience, tackling profound topics such as grief and friendship breakups. She shares her insights from her moving piece on Bobby McIlvaine, exploring the diverse ways people cope with loss. Jennifer also discusses the intriguing gap between how old we feel versus our actual age, along with reflections on parenting and the complexity of relationships. Her storytelling emphasizes resilience, emotional depth, and the nuances of human connections.
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Meeting Bobby McIlvaine
Jennifer Senior's brother was roommates with Bobby McIlvaine.
McIlvaine was a memorable, self-made man from a working-class background who went to Princeton.
insights INSIGHT
Varied Grief
Jennifer Senior's book "On Grief" explores the varying grief experiences of McIlvaine's loved ones.
Each person grieves differently, highlighting the individuality of the grieving process.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Bob Sr.'s Grief
Bobby McIlvaine's father, Bob Sr., immersed himself in 9/11 conspiracy theories.
This was his way of staying connected to his grief and his son.
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Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide is a powerful and poignant book that delves into the complex issue of suicide. Kay Redfield Jamison combines her clinical expertise with personal experiences to provide a compassionate and insightful analysis. The book explores the history of suicidal ideation, its psychological and biological underpinnings, and the profound effects on those left behind. It also discusses recent advances in treatment and prevention.
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It’s likely uncontroversial to assert that Jennifer Senior is one of our finest living journalists. She’s currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and before that she spent many years at the New York Times and New York magazine. Jennifer’s written on a vast array of topics, but she has a special knack for writing articles about the human condition that go massively, massively, viral. One such hit was a lengthy and extremely moving piece for The Atlantic that won a Pulitzer Prize. It was about a young man who died on 9/11, and the wildly varying ways in which his loved ones experienced grief. That article, called “What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind,” has now been turned into a book called, On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory.
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