Death and Other Holidays

Death and Other Holidays, was selected by Jim Shepard as winner of the inaugural Miami Book Fair / de Groot Prize.

“Beautifully conceived and beautifully executed. Marci Vogel is an artist in complete control of her materials.” —Percival Everett

“. . . wryly appealing and quietly moving . . . deftly constructed.” —Jim Shepard

“Vogel builds, with lightness and clear eyes, a vibrant world of family, love, and loss. Skillful and charming . . . all made by a voice that trembles between boldness and vulnerability.” —Aimee Bender

“Vogel is a master at planting improbable seeds . . . and growing them into a strange and magnificent garden.” —Rivka Galchen

“. . . an extremely smart, inventive, and stylish book.”—Dennis Johnson

“Death and Other Holidays brilliantly balances humor and anger, sorrow and beauty. Vogel’s subjects may be grief and death, but her writing reflects life as we live it, life with its many intricate, unnoticed balances.” — NPR

“The prose is stunning: never overwrought for so intense a subject, flowing yet specific, quiet and lovely.” Kirkus, starred review

“An original and affecting tour of family, the calendar, and the days that bind us to both.”—Booklist

“A tour de force . . . Composed of gorgeous vignettes . . . Death and Other Holidays is raw, honest, and darkly humorous . . . speaks to the aching young adult in all of us.”— Arkansas International

“Vogel honors mortality and our awareness of it as the organizing facts of our humanity. With unparalleled tenderness, she recognizes our celebrations of life as heroic efforts to think about literally anything else. But over the course of one calendar year in April’s life she also reminds us: Death is never far away, try as we might to ignore it.” — The New Republic

“Poignant and affecting . . . It’s the sort of prose that may make you cry (at least it made me cry) but over its lyrical beauty and spot-on turns of phrase.” — Full Stop