Publication Date: April 1, 2025
For fans of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking or David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy, this debut memoir about a mother grieving her young-adult son’s death is a must-read for any parent who has lost a child or whose child struggles with addiction.
A luminous story of how love triumphs over pain, love transcends fear, and love never dies; this debut memoir from a mother grieving her young-adult son’s death is a must-read for any parent who has lost a child, is raising a child from the edge of their seat, or whose family struggles with addiction.
When Sally’s twenty-one-year-old son died in a boat accident, her greatest fear is realized. Christopher was often drawn to risk and struggled with addiction. In this riveting memoir, Sally captures the wild ride of his jam-packed life and her deep love for him while reflecting on her own childhood and family’s legacy of alcoholism.
Sally shares insights about what it’s like to experience the emotional aftershocks of acute grief, filtered through the lens of her personal experience as a mother and her professional vantage point as a psychotherapist. Even if they have not been touched by loss in this way, readers may see themselves in Sally’s bittersweet illusion of trying to keep her son safe, in how she is challenged to let go of her fear, guilt, and regret in order to forgive herself, and in the ways grief teaches her about the power of love.
For a mother, ensuring the safety of her children continues well into adulthood. When a tragedy occurs, it leaves an unnatural void.
Sally McQuillen shares a memoir of loving and losing a child in Reaching for Beautiful. The story encompasses the first year of her grief journey, illustrating the rawness of her emotions.
The story opens as the family tries to process the news that something has happened to 21-year-old Christopher. Through a mother’s eyes, readers take a front seat as Sally’s emotions shift rapidly between disbelief, shock, anger, and a deep-rooted grief.
It’s brutal and packed with heartache, but the story shifts from the present to tracing Christopher’s life and the challenges he presented to his parents. These remembrances create a sense of familiarity for readers, providing common ground for those of us who can empathize with the rollercoaster ride of parenting a wild child.
Reaching for Beautiful serves as a helpful guide for other parents dealing with grief and trying to find peace.
Sally McQuillen, LCSW, CADC, is a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in addiction, grief, and trauma recovery. An avid reader with a double major in writing and dance criticism at Denison University, she began working in public relations and marketing prior to obtaining her master’s degree in social work from Loyola University of Chicago. Reaching for Beautiful is Sally’s first book. She and her husband live on the north shore of Chicago where they raised their three children.
