Cartography of Loss
A Widowhood in Essays
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Pub Date Dec 1 2026 | Archive Date Nov 21 2026
Caitlin Hamilton Marketing & Publicity, for | She Writes Press
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Description
When her husband is diagnosed with glioblastoma, Karen Paul becomes a full-time caregiver overnight. Their marriage, the landscape of which had always shown fractures, is instantly and radically transformed. Years after the long vigil of illness and his death, Karen faces the uneasy recalibration that follows and a new identity she never asked for: widow.
Told in three parts, Cartography of Loss chronicles the very particular and personal—from hospital corridors and hospice visits to tattoos and the strange circumstance of falling in love again. Along the journey, readers bear witness through stages of early widowhood, life’s continuance in spite of unbearable grief, and the echoes of losses compounded over a lifetime.
Exploring how a widow must learn to map out her life in new ways after devastating loss, Paul’s is more than a grief memoir, it’s a clear-eyed, often funny exploration of how loss rearranges a life—and proof that even after the unimaginable, there is a way forward, one essay at a time.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
“…a clear-eyed, compassionate meditation on how grief shapes a life…traces the long arc of loss across generations and shows how we learn to learn to live with what can’t be undone. Her voice is honest and wry; a companion for anyone navigating sorrow and seeking a way forward.”—REBECCA SOFFER, bestselling author of The Modern Loss Handbook
“Paul chronicles unimaginable loss with courage….profound...”—SHERYL SANDBERG, founder and author of Lean In and Option B
“An eloquently composed, gritty, and emotionally challenging read."—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“…a gift.”—LESLIE GRAY STREETER, author of Black Widow
“…the rare grief book that tells the truth: that love, resentment, devotion, exhaustion, dark humor, and bone-deep loneliness can all coexist in the same hour. I will be pressing this book into the hands of mourners, caregivers, and the friends who want to help them….[it] gently insists that every feeling along the way is heartbreakingly normal.”—RABBI SHIRA STUTMAN, author of The Jewish Way to a Good Life and co-host of Chutzpod
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9798896363989 |
| PRICE | $18.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 232 |