Call number
BIO SCH
Collection
Publication
Random House (2022), 256 pages
Description
"Eighteen months before her beloved father died, Kathryn Schulz met Casey, the woman who would become her wife. Lost & Found weaves together their love story with the story of losing Kathryn's father in a brilliant exploration of the way families are lost and found and the way life dispenses wretchedness and suffering, beauty and grandeur all at once. Schulz writes with painful clarity about the vicissitudes of grieving her father, but she also writes about the vital and universal phenomenon of finding. The book is organized into three parts: "Lost," which explores the sometimes frustrating, sometimes comic, sometimes heartbreaking experience of losing things, grounded in Kathryn's account of her father's death; "Found," which examines the experience of discovery, grounded in her story of falling in love; and finally, "And," which contends with the way these events happen in conjunction and imply the inevitable: Life keeps going on, not only around us but beyond us and after us. Kathryn Schulz has the ability to measure the depth and breadth of human experience with unusual exactness and then to articulate the things all of us have felt but have been unable to put into language. Lost & Found is a work of philosophical interrogation as well as a story about life, death, and the discovery of one great love just as she is losing another"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member bobbieharv
I loved the autobiographical parts; the philosophical and literary references not as much. But the structure was very ingenious: Lost, about her father's death; Found, about her wonderful and enviable relationship with her wife; and the last, And, about what will come next. I hope she writes
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another memoir about the child who will come next. Show Less
LibraryThing member ccayne
Schulz is a beautiful writer and her melding of love, death, desire, impermanence and loss is quite wonderful. I loved how eloquently and emotionally she expressed her love and profound sense of loss at the death of her father and also her love for C without becoming saccharine.
LibraryThing member viviennestrauss
Possibly the most profound and beautiful book I've ever read about grief and love.
LibraryThing member Iudita
Kathryn Schulz is a joy to read. I will never think of the simple little ampersand in the same way again.
LibraryThing member Mrsmommybooknerd
This book is quite unforgettable. It was raw, honest and dynamic. This is one of those stories that will resonate with the reader because we can all relate to losing something and/or discovering something about ourselves or the world around us.
LibraryThing member muddyboy
An interesting memoir focusing on the things lost and found in our lives and for the author the death of her father and the finding of her life partner. The book goes beyond these two examples and challenges the reader to appreciate the things they have lost and found in their lives. About two
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thirds of the book is autobiographical as we delve deeply into Schulz's family and interpersonal relationships. The final section "And" is weaker and not that connected to the central theme. Show Less
LibraryThing member steve02476
Excellent book, I loved it. Here’s a quote that shows her writing style:
“Later, back at home, we sprawled together on the couch, watching Double Indemnity and devouring an entire pizza, indolent and satisfied as house cats.”
Also loved her previous book “Being Wrong.”
“Later, back at home, we sprawled together on the couch, watching Double Indemnity and devouring an entire pizza, indolent and satisfied as house cats.”
Also loved her previous book “Being Wrong.”
LibraryThing member banjo123
Schulz writes about two years of her life, when her beloved father dies, and she also meets and falls in love with her wife.
I am ambivalent about the book. The writing is lovely, but super meandering and philosophical. Not direct enough for me. Also, everyone in the book is nice, and wholesome and
Here's a passage to show the writing style:
“What an astonishing thing it is to find someone. Loss may alter our sense of scale, reminding us that the world is overwhelmingly large while we are incredibly tiny. But finding does the same; the only difference is that it makes us marvel rather than despair. In all the vast reaches of space, among all of life's infinite permutations, out of all the trajectories and possibilities and people on the planet, here I was, in this house, following along beside C. as she took my hand and led me out of the living room and into the kitchen, where, she told me, there was something else she wanted me to see.”
I am ambivalent about the book. The writing is lovely, but super meandering and philosophical. Not direct enough for me. Also, everyone in the book is nice, and wholesome and
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all the relationships are unrelentingly positive. Nice for Schultz, but a bit boring to read. I wanted to hear her exasperated with her father's long-windedness and forgetfulness; or enraged with her wife for some petty reason.Here's a passage to show the writing style:
“What an astonishing thing it is to find someone. Loss may alter our sense of scale, reminding us that the world is overwhelmingly large while we are incredibly tiny. But finding does the same; the only difference is that it makes us marvel rather than despair. In all the vast reaches of space, among all of life's infinite permutations, out of all the trajectories and possibilities and people on the planet, here I was, in this house, following along beside C. as she took my hand and led me out of the living room and into the kitchen, where, she told me, there was something else she wanted me to see.”
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LibraryThing member Andy5185
Philosophical, beautiful and intimate this memoir made my heart skip beats. The writing - WOW. The Lost section at the beginning was the most accurate account of the experience of losing a father that I’ve ever seen. It astounded me and reminded me why I love to read.
LibraryThing member FormerEnglishTeacher
I did something I seldom do with a book: I bailed on it. I quit about 3/4 of the way through it. It seemed like a book about the author’s personal life with little to offer a 73-year-old male, which I am. Maybe it’s more appropriate for a female audience than a male one since it spends so much
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time discussing Schultz’s relationship with her wife, author Casey Cep. Both women are accomplished writers, and, like Cep whose book “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee” (2019) I really enjoyed, Schultz’s book is very well written. Schultz is a Pulitzer winner, so he talents aren’t in question. It’s just this particular book for this particular reader. Its overwhelmingly positive reviews are testament that Schultz has an admiring audience, just not this reader. Show Less
LibraryThing member detailmuse
Grief confuses us by spinning us around to face backward, because memories are all we have left, but of course it isn’t the past we mourn when someone dies; it’s the future.
This is a beautiful and gentle memoir of losing and finding -- with some philosophy/literature about the two experiences,
What an astonishing thing it is to find something.
. . .
Overnight, I had become someone who wanted to hold someone’s hand on the way to breakfast.
This is a beautiful and gentle memoir of losing and finding -- with some philosophy/literature about the two experiences,
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but largely explored as a eulogy of her father as she comes to terms with his death (I grew fond of Schulz and everyone in her family), and as an homage to the woman who is now her wife.What an astonishing thing it is to find something.
. . .
Overnight, I had become someone who wanted to hold someone’s hand on the way to breakfast.
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LibraryThing member suesbooks
This book did not disappoint me, as I had heard it was quite tedious, and it was. It also did not present much new material, so I am surprised by the glowing reviews. Schulz and her partner, Casey Cep, are obviously very happy, very bright women. Hiowever, the details of their life would have been
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a much better essay than an entire book. I also question how healthy for everyone it is for them to be aware of the major problems of the world today and for them to simply look at themselves and how well life is treating them. Show Less
Awards
National Book Award (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2022)
Lambda Literary Award (Finalist — Lesbian Memoir/Biography — 2023)
National Jewish Book Award (Finalist — 2022)
Ohioana Book Award (Finalist — 2023)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2023)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Nonfiction — 2023)
NPR: Books We Love (2022)
Boston Globe Best Book (Nonfiction — 2022)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2022)
Pages
256
ISBN
0525512462 / 9780525512462