Response to "Abracadabra"

Three sentences I found particularly poignant in Solwitz's memoir read as follows: "If the soul lives even ten seconds after death, [Jesse] had to have heard me" (673); "[Jesse] and Seth walking together along the sidewalk, bumping into each other, not as a dominance game but as an unconscoius joining, a return to their junction in utero" (674); and "But I fear madness without my audience, my readers, however imaginary" (676). Solwitz's writing style has its strength in her honesty--as when she blatantly acknowledges that she is in dire need of her readers--but its weakness is when she leans toward sentimentality. The death of her son is a perfectly morose subject on its own and needs no embellishment.
The character Solwitz develops for herself in her memoir is nothing out of the orndinary for a person experiencing the loss that she has: she is hostile toward others who remind her of her son, capricious in her personality, and neurotic. She captivates readers with flashes of creative experimentation and the humanity of her self-contradictions. She offers herself advice only to repudiate it in passages to come.
I imagine Solwitz published this memoir because she took her own advice: write for yourself. Readers are drawn to her piece's consistency throughout, knowing that her pain will not be assuaged but that she might grow from it. In this respect, this is more a memoir concerning Solwitz herself than her deceased son Jesse. He is the person to whom the piece is dedicated, but she is the one moving the piece forward in her constant attempts to recover from her tragedy.