Book #5: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

Title: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
Author: Elizabeth McCracken

In An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Elizabeth McCracken writes, sometimes in excruciating detail, about her experience giving birth to her first child, who was stillborn. It's both a hard book to read and a hard book to put down, and much more gripping than McCracken's fiction. It's not a book I'd give to a grieving mother who has just gone through the same experience, but maybe one I'd give to someone a few months later. She writes beautifully about the pregnancy, the birth, the aftermath, and ultimately, what it feels like to do it over again. I want to be able to write like this-- the pain, the beauty, all of it. But I don't think anyone wants to have this kind of experience in order to be able to have this kind of gift. As an aside, McCracken and Ann Patchett went to school together and she mentions her friend Ann multiple time throughout the book, and it's fun to see the real-life friendship of these two talented women.