Grief Is for People

Grief Is for People (2024) is a memoir by writer Sloane Crosley that focuses on the theft of several items of jewelry from her Manhattan apartment and the death by suicide of her friend and one-time boss Russell Perreault in 2019. The events occur exactly one month apart, and throughout the memoir, Crosley weaves back and forth between the two happenings and their aftermath, processing their emotional impact. As she tries to recover the jewelry, she also attempts to process Russell’s death, moving nonlinearly through the five stages of grief.

Crosley is the author of three collections of personal essays and two novels. The collection Look Alive Out There was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2019. Crosley has also written the film adaptations for her novels (Cult Classic and The Clasp). Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Vanity Fair, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, The Atlantic, and The Guardian.

This guide refers to the 2024 hardcover edition published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death by suicide and mental illness.

Summary

On June 27, 2019, a burglar enters the apartment of author Sloane Crosley through a window and steals 41 pieces of jewelry, including pieces that belonged to both of Crosley’s grandmothers. Crosley files a police report and then eagerly examines security camera footage of the burglar outside of her apartment building. As it becomes clear that the detectives have no leads, Crosley takes it upon herself to investigate by scouring the internet for her missing items. The theft of the jewelry soon becomes tied, in Crosley’s mind, to the death by suicide of her friend and former boss Russell Perreault exactly one month following the theft, on July 27, 2019.

Crosley recalls meeting Russell when he hired her as a publicist for Knopf—a major New York publishing house. Russell noted a large, square ring that Crosley wore during her interview, which is among the stolen items. Crosley and Russell were fast friends—they socialized together, and Russell prompted Crosley to buy the antique cabinet for her jewelry; the cabinet was damaged during the theft.

At the end of July 2019, Crosley met Russell for dinner and gave him instructions on caring for her cat during her trip to Melbourne, Australia, for a writers’ conference. On Saturday, July 27, Russell dies by hanging in the barn on his Connecticut property. Crosley learns of his death on Monday when Russell’s partner calls her. Crosley briefly attends a support group for friends and family of people who have died by suicide, desperate to learn whether Russell emitted any missed warning signs. She attends the conference in Melbourne but is in a state of denial throughout, pretending that Russell is alive.

Afterward, Crosley establishes a ritual of sitting across the street from the restaurant where she last saw Russell, having imaginary conversations with him. She obsessively thinks about Russell, believing that stopping would be a betrayal to him. She joins a grief support group but does not find it entirely helpful. She reads books about grief and stresses how similar they are. She speculates the cause of Russell’s suicide, noting that Russell and his partner had an argument a few days before his death.

Crosley dives into her search for her missing jewelry with fervor, believing that the retrieval of the items will also bring back Russell. Through various chains, Crosley locates two of the stolen items for sale on eBay. She buys one of them—a tiger eye ring—while planning how to uncover the seller’s identity and track down their source. The second item—an amulet necklace—is overpriced. She tracks its listing until it is sold.

Six months later, the necklace reappears online, for sale by a different owner in Manhattan. Crosley devises an elaborate plan: A friend of hers will pose as a buyer and then ask to see the item in person. The friend is provided an address and finds himself in a strange space within a building, where a man and a woman guard a safe. He leaves without speaking to them. Crosley goes to the address and explains her predicament to the man, Dimitri. Dimitri asks her to return the next day. Then, he gives Crosley the necklace, telling her that its theft was a mistake.

The narrative shifts back in time to trace several significant events in Russell’s life during his friendship with Crosley. Crosley was a frequent summer guest at Russell and his partner’s Connecticut home, but the invitations abruptly stopped. Crosley initially accepted Russell’s excuses for the change but later realized that Russell’s partner was having an affair with a guest. Crosley revisits two key events during Russell’s tenure at Knopf: a media scandal involving one of Russell’s clients, author James Frey, and a series of sexual harassment accusations levied against Russell.

The COVID-19 pandemic begins, and as the city enters quarantine, Crosley embraces sadness. She wonders how Russell would have spent the time and muses about the strangeness of the empty city. She explores iconic New York film moments to convey how surreal the city has become. She jogs through empty streets and visits Grand Central Station, where her conversations with Russell resume.

In the final section, Crosley speaks of her desire to experience what Russell experienced before death—she wants to jump 36 feet from a large cliff near Sydney, Australia, into the ocean. On a whim, she had previously accompanied a woman named Bec to the cliff, donned a wetsuit, and prepared to jump. Neither woman completed the jump. Now, in a combination of unfinished business and an unexplainable desire to experience something akin to Russell’s jump as he died by hanging, Crosley returns to Australia. In the end, she does not jump, which is conveyed metaphorically as a decision to live and accept that Russell is dead. Instead, Crosley tosses a broken necklace—the chain severed in half during the theft and the other half lost—over the edge.

When she returns home, she unexpectedly finds the missing half of the chain while cleaning: It was wedged inside of a book. Crosley notes that the book—a biography of Edie Sedgwick—was Russell’s favorite.