The Pure Lover and the mature mourner: The literary expression of grief in David Plante’s memoir and its cultural, educational, and therapeutic significance

ABSTRACT

Among multiple grief narratives published in recent decades, The Pure Lover: A Memoir of Grief (2009) by David Plante stands out in its self-reflective and nonnormative approach to grief. Focusing on same-gender partner bereavement, this qualitative study explores the following areas: (1) the cultural, supportive, and egalitarian functions of the arts in The Pure Lover; (2) select grief approaches in the context of Plante’s memoir to illustrate and verify those approaches; and (3) the memoir as a cost-effective educational and bibliotherapeutic aid for those who support, care for, and work with older LGBTIQ+ grievers. Based on lived experience, grief memoirs, a sub-genre of life writing, constitute longitudinal narrative case studies. As such, they can help deconstruct normative viewpoints and promote the cultural significance of the arts in grief support; provide scholars with verifiable literary data to update bereavement concepts and theories, especially in such underexplored areas as bereavement in older LGBTIQ+ adults; boost a more ethical and inclusive approach to grief-stricken patients and clients; and provide a low-triggering bibliotherapeutic tool in bereavement.

KEYWORDS:

• Arts
• bibliotherapy
• culture
• education
• grief memoir
• healthcare
• humanities
• lgbtiq+
• literature
• same-gender partner bereavement
• stigma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katarzyna A. Małecka

Katarzyna A. Małecka is an Assistant Professor in the Department of North American Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz, Poland. Dr. Małecka is the author of numerous publications on death and grief in literature. She has been awarded three international scholarships to conduct her research on loss and bereavement: the interdisciplinary research grant by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna; the Fulbright Senior Award Scholarship for her project on the use of modern bereavement memoirs in grief therapy; and the Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship for her project on the bibliotherapeutic application of grief narratives in the clinical setting. She is currently working on a book analyzing the social, cultural, and therapeutic characteristics and applications of modern bereavement memoirs.