Love is the language that sex speaks

There is a scene in Pier Paulo Pasolini’s Decameron in which a crowd mourns the death of a saint. The performance of their grief is guided by local religious custom. While they are transported into an encounter with the sublime, pick-pockets steal their wallets. This image is a point of departure for this book, its text gathered by recording whatever thoughts were of enough substance to be noted. Much of the material is of uncertain authorship, derived from overheard conversations, the utterances of others, and passages from books, articles, films, and images. Over four years Rebecca La Marre collected phrases as if physical material, assembling an argument for what a secular approach to grieving may look like.