''An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination'' is a 2008 memoir by the novelist Elizabeth McCracken of a full-term pregnancy that ended in a

stillbirth Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The term ...

. Maureen Corrigan of NPR's '' Fresh Air'' named it one of the best books of 2008, about a "nightmare that hasn't been quite categorized." '' Time'''s Lev Grossman wrote that reading ''Replica'' is a "mysteriously enlarging experience" and that it is "the funniest book about a dead baby that you will ever read." ''People'' magazine noted the rarity of records of such experiences: "In the annals of grief memoirs, stillbirth stories don't figure big. How much is there to say, after all, about a baby who never drew breath? McCracken, who was days from her due date when her doctor failed to find a heartbeat, knows how much." The '' New York Times'' reviewer, who had apparently experienced something similar, wrote of ''Replica'', "the author also applies honesty, wisdom and even wit to a painful event."

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

noted that while McCracken wrote "Closure is bullshit," "her memoir shows her achieving a sort of peace, though never a mindless tranquility." '' Fourth Genre'', a journal dedicated to "notable, innovative work in non-fiction," described the book in a column about how different writers have approached

grief Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cogni ...

: "McCracken frankly illuminates what that situation really implies: the sad and gruesome facts concerning giving birth to a dead baby. You carry it for the full nine months, you feel it move inside you, so you and your mate know for sure its alive, and then you bear it, finally, because you have to, even though you've learned it has died." An excerpt was published in the August 2008 issue of ''Oprah'' magazine. Analyses of how stillbirths should be treated legally have referenced this book. Legal scholar

Carol Sanger Carol Sanger (born December 30, 1948) is an American legal scholar specializing in reproductive rights. She is Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Biography Sanger was born on December 30, 1948, in Nuremberg, Germany ...

wrote in 2012, "Putting anything into the balance against the exigencies of parental grief may suggest a cold indifference to suffering. That is not the case here. I proceed in my analysis ever mindful of the utter calamity of stillbirth for the parents of a stillborn baby. It is, as novelist Elizabeth McCracken states in her generous memoir of stillbirth, 'the worst thing in the world.'" The book has also been described as part of a genre of "narratives about pregnancy by those who have been pregnant. Such narratives can help us to partially overcome the obstacles that those who have not been pregnant face in grasping the knowledge gained through pregnancy." In 2018, ''

Ninth Letter ''Ninth Letter'' is a literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration between thSchool of Art + Designand the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaig ...

'' published

Maggie Smith Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the mid-1950s, Smith has appeared in more than sixty films and seventy plays. She is one of the few performer ...

's "Poem Beginning with a Line from An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination"SMITH, MAGGIE. Ninth Letter, Spring/Summer2018, Vol. 15 Issue 1, p132-132,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination 2008 non-fiction books American memoirs Little, Brown and Company books