The Crying Book

Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. 

Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen tear-shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear-collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. 

Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness.

©2019 Heather Christle (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

great book!

I love this book! it jumped around a little and was a tiny bit hard to follow. all around great story and look I to this woman's relationship with crying, grief and tears. A great first book into my research behind crying.

Poignant and Captivating

The Crying Book is a captivating book that says a lot in a brief and poignant way. Christle explores grief, despair, and trauma while simultaneously examining crying from several perspectives (e.g., biological, cultural, social, relational, and psychological) through the use of research, literature, poetry, and academic works. Christle eloquently oscillates in and out of these psychic spaces revealing the edges of these experiences, along with her humanity. The narrator, Elizabeth Cottle, thoughtfully reads Christle’s work, pausing when necessary and keeping a decent rhythm and tone.