--- title: How Reading Helped This Woman Process Her Grief description: In Katharine Smyth's new book, she writes about how when she lost her father she turned to the stories of Virginia Woolf to cope with loss. canonical: https://time.com/5511726/katharine-smyth-virginia-woolf-book-review/ author: Bethanne Patrick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-01-24T11:31:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T11:51:42.874Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: How Reading Helped This Woman Process Her Grief og:description: Katharine Smyth copes with the grief of her father's death through Virginia Woolf og:url: https://time.com/5511726/katharine-smyth-virginia-woolf-book-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt994816a937a7d253/698943eb8fd2ee5cd135da6c/all-the-lives-we-ever-lived-timeoff-book-review-1-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: all the lives we ever lived.JPG og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Reading Helped This Woman Process Her Grief twitter:description: Katharine Smyth copes with the grief of her father's death through Virginia Woolf twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt994816a937a7d253/698943eb8fd2ee5cd135da6c/all-the-lives-we-ever-lived-timeoff-book-review-1-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Reading Helped This Woman Process Her Grief > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Bethanne Patrick](https://time.com/author/bethanne-patrick/) ## Bethanne Patrick Jan 24, 2019 11:31 AM UTC  Smyth’s book offers a unique blend of memoir and literary criticism Smyth’s book offers a unique blend of memoir and literary criticism by [Bethanne Patrick](https://time.com/author/bethanne-patrick/) ## Bethanne Patrick Jan 24, 2019 11:31 AM UTC The loss of a parent challenges most children, no matter their age. But when the parent is both beloved and deeply flawed, as Katharine Smyth’s father was, that grief can be difficult to parse. In _All the Lives We Ever Lived_: _Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf_, Smyth turns to an unlikely source of solace after her father’s death: her favorite book, Woolf’s 1927 masterpiece _To the Lighthouse_. Blending analysis of a deeply literary novel with a personal story is a high-wire act for many reasons, not least being how few readers will have read Woolf themselves. But Smyth, who earned an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia, is up to the challenge, gently entwining observations from Woolf’s classic with her own layered experience. Smyth tells us of her love for her father, his profound alcoholism and the unpredictable course of the cancer that ultimately claimed his life. She admits that she doesn’t understand him. As she navigates her sense of loss, she discovers that the structure of _To the Lighthouse_–in which a family’s seemingly perfect past and unsure future are bridged by a stormy present–is more than a literary device. It’s a statement that speaks directly to her needs, “an endeavor to speak to and rectify grief’s essential formlessness.” Smyth finds a way to translate how fiction helps us understand that formlessness, and the way in which even the death of a close relative, especially in a sanitized hospital setting, can feel remote and inaccessible. As she searches for truths about her father, Smyth accepts that nothing–not his corporeal self, not his character, not his history–can be fully known. In _To the Lighthouse_, Mr. Ramsay quotes a poem: “And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be/ Are full of trees and changing leaves.” In writing her own book, Smyth has discovered a way to appreciate the changing leaves, one that works both as memoir and as an aid to those who mourn. 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