The Rules of Inheritance

Claire Bidwell Smith, a fourteen-year-old only child, learns that both her parents have cancer. The fear of becoming a family of one compels her to make a series of fraught choices, set against the glittering backdrop of New York and Los Angeles. When the inevitable happens and Claire is alone in the world, she is inconsolable at the revelation that suddenly she is no one’s special person. It is only later, when Claire falls in love, marries and becomes a mother, that she emerges from the fog of grief. Using the five stages of grief as a window onto her personal experience, Claire Bidwell Smith has written a powerful memoir that is at once exquisite and profound. 'Bidwell Smith's writing is beautiful and honest, drawing you in both to sympathise and see what happens next. She perfectly illustrates the pain of losing loved ones, and the need to deal with it if life is to improve.' Herald Sun

About the Author :
Claire Bidwell Smith is a therapist specialising in grief. She has worked for Dave Eggers’ literacy centre 826LA, and most recently as a bereavement counsellor for a hospice in Chicago. She has written for Time Out New York, BlackBook, the Huffington Post and Chicago Public Radio, and is working on her second book. Claire lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their daughter.

Review :
THE RULES OF INHERITANCE by Claire Bidwell Smith (February 2nd) is a brilliant memoir about a young woman who at age fourteen learns that both of her parents have cancer. A huge burden at any age, but even more difficult for an adolescent. Her choice the night her mother dies will haunt her, her father's death will be a lonely vigil and who she becomes between these two experiences and who she emerges after them is one powerful story. It's written in a non-linear style using the five stages of grief as a lens to look inside Claire's emotions at this time. She is now a grief counselor herself and her compassion given her experience translates beautifully here. I can see myself thinking about this book for a long time. bookreporter.com 'The clarity of [Bidwell Smith's] self-reflection is exquisite and excruciating. There is a passionate sadness to her grief but the feeling of absolute aloneness is the hardest to bear...She understands the power of the pause: sometimes what is left unsaid can be more powerful than what is spoken. Her prose is direct, considered, elegant. She flouts the rules of punctuation but in doing so removes a final barrier between word and reader.' Weekend Australian '[Bidwell Smith's] journey to where she feels able to move past the suffering and towards a future of hope is one of the most honest and wrenching memoirs I have read. Not only did she make me cry - repeatedly - but her writing style, engaging and immediate, flows seamlessly from emotionally raw to the warmth of literary hot milk.' Readings Monthly, March