How can all-consuming grief be harnessed as a function of living? A brother is lost to cancer and his sister’s reasonable world disintegrates. Dreams seem real; life seems illusory. Hope plays cat-and-mouse with despair until psychological, physical, and spiritual health are restored in strange and unexpected ways.

"Open artery writing, not bedtime reading, MARTY IS DEAD is a beautiful work. Christina Larson shares a little piece of heaven, glimpsed while enduring great pain and turmoil."
-Betty Williams, Nobel Peace laureate from Ireland

"MARTY IS DEAD will leave the reader breathless- awestruck by both its savage honesty and luminosity of hope. Larson offers us understanding of the trauma experienced when a loved one dies and permission to experience all aspects of our grief."
-Adair Pickard, Catholic Charities Regional Director

"MARTY IS DEAD will make you cry, laugh and long for the experience of being fully known. Told with thoughtfulness, depth, and stunning honesty, Christina Larson reminds us that within death lies the seeds of true transformation for the dying and bereaved alike."
-Michael DeMaria, Ph.D., psychologist, author of Ever Flowing On & Horns and Halos

"Christina Larson offers a very powerful and amazingly insightful chronicle of her struggle with her brother’s battle with cancer. Language that is philosophically mature and poetically moving describes her very personal journey from denial and despair to deep understanding and inspiring hope as she reƒPects on the awful, yet promising mystery of life to death- and life."
-William Mountcastle, United Methodist minister, Emeritus M.L.Tipton professor of philosophy & religious studies

"… highly sensitive to the unique nature of grief… a privilege, a gift."
-Kenneth J. Doka, Ph.D., Hospice Foundation of America Senior Consultant, College of New Rochelle Professor

"Larson’s work deeply involves the reader and helps us begin to comprehend the transition and emotional evolution of death.
-Embley Noechel, PETA advocate, Yowl editor, author of Murder of Crows & Museum Mundane.

"A call to the Great Spirit for guidance, full circle, the call is answered."
-Ponaycatawa Moitoee, GWY (Eastern Cherokee) chief

"In this time of indigestible news, we hunger for humanizing story. Here it is- a poetic quilt-like account, spun of dreams and woven memories, in the best story-telling, Irish tradition."
-Christine Ziebold, M.D., Ph.D., MPH- Pediatrician, Parker Hughes Cancer Center