All Things Consoled

Winner, Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
Shortlisted for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize
A Globe and Mail Top 100 book
A Chatelaine Best Book of 2018

“Hay’s prose elevates this ordinary rite of passage—the death of one’s parents—to something rare and poetic. All Things Consoled becomes, itself, a consolation for anyone desparing at the loose ends that parents leave behind. Page-after-page this is a masterclass in observation—a lesson in how meaning can emerge from grief.” —2018 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury Citation

“Piercingly candid and exquisitely written, Elizabeth Hay’s memoir describes the intensity of the love, uncertainty and exasperation triggered by her parents’ dying. Yet there is humour here, too, even—especially—after the final goodbyes.” —Charlotte Gray, author of The Promise of Canada

“Elizabeth Hay is a marvel. She honours her parents in this portrait of their final years. As steadfast a daughter as she is a writer, Hay writes with sometimes scalding authenticity about aging and the challenges that come with the end of a life, but she is never less than tender. I loved this moving memoir.” —Michael Redhill, author of Bellevue Square

“[All Things Consoled’s] tiny scope and narrow focus is its strength. It is quite simply about death and how it both scours us and educates us.” —Globe and Mail

“Iconic Canadian author Elizabeth Hay is an accomplished, beautiful and elegant writer and that accomplishment, beauty and elegance are evident in her latest book, All Things Consoled.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“In All Things Consoled, Hay chronicles with breathtaking honesty the ravages of age and decline. She also shows how love, beauty and the sustenance of writing are a kind of balm for this reality of the human experience.” —CBC Radio