The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths review a powerful portrait of loss and violence

"The night before her wedding to Salman Rushdie in 2021, the American poet and novelist Rachel Eliza Griffiths was fretting about her best friend. Kamilah Aisha Moon was due to read a poem at the ceremony, but no one had heard from her. Her phone was going straight to voicemail and staff at her hotel said she hadn't checked in. We'll find her. She wouldn't miss your wedding, Griffiths's sister, Melissa, assured her."

"But the next afternoon, in the middle of her wedding reception, Griffiths learned that Moon had died alone at home in Atlanta of unknown causes. On hearing the news she collapsed, hit her head on a table and blacked out. Paramedics pried open her eyes to shine a torch on them: A particle of light that is so distant from the world I once knew."

"For Griffiths, 47, the death of her best friend and chosen sister was one in a series of upheavals stretching across a decade. It began with the death of her mother, who was her greatest cheerleader and fiercest critic. She had instilled in her daughter the importance of independence above everything. I was raised not to lose myself in the stories of others, especially men."

"After that came the pandemic, during which two of Griffiths's uncles died. But there was worse to come. Less than a year after Moon's death, a stranger attempted to assassinate Rushdie. The author, who had a fatwa issued against him by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, sustained near fatal stab wounds to his neck, chest, hand and eye. Rushdie would later write about the attack in his own book, Knife."

Rachel Eliza Griffiths experienced a decade of upheavals beginning with the death of her mother, who emphasized independence. She lost a close friend, Kamilah Aisha Moon, who died alone at home in Atlanta of unknown causes on the eve of Griffiths's wedding, causing Griffiths to collapse and lose consciousness. Two uncles died during the pandemic. Griffiths met and fell in love with Salman Rushdie in 2017 after an accidental collision with a plate-glass door. Less than a year after Moon's death, a stranger stabbed Rushdie, leaving him with near-fatal wounds to his neck, chest, hand and eye. Griffiths remains attuned to subtleties and interior chaos.

Read at www.theguardian.com