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An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

'This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending.'

A prize-winning, successful novelist in her 30s, Elizabeth McCracken was happy to be an itinerant writer and self-proclaimed spinster. Then she fell in love, got married, and continued her life of writing, travelling, and teaching with her husband.Two years ago, she found herself in a remote part of France, waiting for the birth of her first child.

This book is about what happens next. In the ninth month of her pregnancy, a baby is lost.Just over a year later, a baby is born. In a profoundly moving display of humour, heart, and unfailing generosity, McCracken tenderly presents her story: a story of true love and unfathomable sadness, of courageous recovery and bittersweet moments, of steadfast memories and deep affection.Grief walks through these pages of this remarkable book, but so do happiness and hope.



A grief memoir that fuses the immediacy readers crave from the genre with all the reflective, consoling depth of fiction.
The Observer

About Elizabeth McCracken

Elizabeth McCracken is the award-winning author of eight books including The Giant's House (a National Book Award finalist), Thunderstruck & Other Stories (winner of the 2014 Story Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award), and The Hero of This Book (winner of the Wingate Prize). She has received grants and fellow­ships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and she was chosen as one of Granta's twenty best American writers under forty. She has served on the faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and taught at the University of Texas at Austin.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781409016472
  • Length: 224 pages
  • Price: £9.99