The grief account: dimensions of a contemporary bereavement genre.

The genre of the grief account is identified to include published narratives of surviving grief. Thematic analysis of Andrew Holleran's (2006) Grief: A Novel, Lolly Winston's (2004) Good Grief: A Novel, Joan Didion's (2005) The Year of Magical Thinking, and J. Canfield and M. V. Hansen's (2003) Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul: Stories About Life, Death and Overcoming the Loss of a Loved One is informed by recent scholarship regarding eulogies and illness and dying narratives. Six dimensions (restorative, evaluative, interpretive, affirmative, affective, transformative) of contemporary grief accounts are recognized as sources of inspiration for the practice and experience of bereavement.