A book review of Without Your Father by Jessica Lynne Henkle
Stars: *****
Unsolicited Press 2026
Memoir
136 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.
Summary: Five days after the sudden death of Jessica Lynne Henkle’s father, the phrase “when your father dies” seeped into her shock-sore brain, and for the next year, it kept pouring out of her. Half-blind with questions, she catalogued that year, in all its unmerciful unknowns, and ended up with a series of snapshots. Time passes, and yet, it doesn’t. Each day is distinct, and yet, it is exactly the same. Without Your Father is concrete, abstract, gentle, blunt, lighthearted, and deeply sad all at once. But then, so is grief. Written in the second person and with searing honesty, the book consists of 112 vignettes that depict the oddities and absurdities of navigating sudden loss, along with the utter devastation of it: the daily, sometimes hourly trudging forward in a life that has become unrecognizable now that one person is no longer in it. Some of the vignettes tell a story; others are more like prose poems.
The book can be read in one sitting, savored over several days, or dropped into at random for a dose of reflection, comfort, or validation. More than anything, that’s what Jessica yearned for during her time of terrible grief: the sense that what she was feeling was not alien, even if it was alien to her. Without Your Father seeks to mimic the grieving process itself and allows readers to enter its pages and move through their own losses, in their own ways. It is, at its core, an offering-from one grieving soul to another.
Without Your Father
This book is more than a memoir of a lost father. It’s written in an unusual way that is captivating and kept me reading even though it’s such a sad topic.
Each page in the book only contains one paragraph, some longer than others. They are numbered 1-112 and are further separated into sections. Each reads like an entry into a journal almost but not in a dear diary style. More like a memory mixed with raw emotions and showing the process of grief from recent death to a year past. The book calls them vignettes.
They are written in the second person as if it was your father that died. This I find, makes it hard to read if you haven’t lost your father because it makes a stark reminder that the day will come. However I plan to keep the book to reread after that fateful day. It’s that poignant and I think it will be comforting.
Buy Without Your Father on Amazon.ca