Loved One by Aisha Muharrar
Two women try to piece together the life of a loved one in this sweet and funny take on grief and intimacy by Parks and Recreation writer Aisha Muharrar
In her debut novel Loved One, Aisha Muharrar – Emmy-nominated writer for HBO’s Hacks and NBC’s Parks and Recreation – gathers all the sparkle and droll of a TV comedy drama and folds it into moments of gut-wrenching prose. The story follows Julia as she navigates the grief of unexpectedly losing her first-love-turned-best-friend (and world-famous indie musician) Gabe, aged 29. Leaving her native LA, Julia embarks on a quest to Europe to recover the possessions Gabe left with friends and acquaintances before his death. When Julia comes up against Gabe’s last love, Elizabeth, secrets unravel as the women reconcile their conflicting visions of Gabe and try to piece together his last month of life.
Loved One is a book about grief and the practice of grieving. Even the rhythm of writing, which unravels at pace but with moments of puncture, seems to mirror grief’s jolting but legato dissonance. But it is also a novel about intimacy, the afterlives of people and objects, and of how well we really know one another. While the verse feels heavy-handed at times, overall this is a gorgeous read full of small wisdoms. Muharrar excels in distilling the messy complications of what it is to know a person, both the relationships we’ve had for a decade and those we have just made. Loved One will have you stifling giggles on one page, glassy-eyed on the next.