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BOOK DESCRIPTION—SHORT
Casey needs a family: the joys and sorrows, people who love her, and a place she belongs—what Zorba the Greek called “the full catastrophe.
Orphaned at twelve and soon the only surviving sibling, Casey marries young and has three children, but her marriage isn’t the dream she envisioned. Ultimately, a divorce and custody trial propel her family into a catastrophe of a different sort, and each of her children suffers. Struggling alongside them, she draws strength from spirituality. Then the unthinkable happens—her firstborn, Eric, dies at age twenty—and she’s left to make sense of her family’s collapse and the loss of her beloved boy.
In a moving testament to the power of love, The Full Catastrophe tells of a life of loss and sorrow transformed into one of hope and redemption.
BOOK DESCRIPTION—LONG
Casey needs a family: the joys and sorrows, people who love her, and a place she belongs—what Zorba the Greek called “the full catastrophe”—and she’s determined to make it happen. Adrift since losing her father when she was eleven and her mother soon after, the death of her sole sibling eight years later only strengthens her resolve.
Though she struggles with grief and a shaky sense of her place in the world, Casey marries, has three children, and thinks she’s found the life she’s longed for. But soon it’s clear her marriage isn’t the dream she envisioned. When her husband’s behavior shifts from troubling to destructive, a contentious divorce and custody trial propel her family into a catastrophe of a different sort, one she never imagined. This hits all her children hard, especially Eric, her adventure-seeking firstborn son. Struggling alongside him, Casey embraces the spirituality she’s sought in various forms since childhood. Then the unthinkable happens—Eric dies at age twenty—and she’s left to make sense of her family’s collapse and the sudden yet somehow inevitable loss of her beloved boy.
In a moving testament to the power of love, The Full Catastrophe tells of a life of loss and sorrow transformed into one of hope and redemption. With hard-won wisdom, Casey shows us how peace and belonging can only be found within ourselves.
BIO—SHORT
Casey Mulligan Walsh writes about life at the intersection of grief and joy, embracing uncertainty, and the nature of true belonging. Her memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, is forthcoming from Motina Books in February 2025. She has written for The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Barren, and numerous other literary magazines. Casey’s essay, “Still,” published in Split Lip, was nominated for Best of the Net. She also serves as an ambassador for the Family Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the genetic lipid disorder that has affected her family across generations.
Casey lives in upstate New York with her husband, Kevin, and too many books to count. Learn more at www.caseymulliganwalsh.com.
BIO—LONG
Casey Mulligan Walsh is a former speech-language pathologist who writes about life at the intersection of grief and joy, embracing uncertainty, and the nature of true belonging. Her memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, is forthcoming from Motina Books in February 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, WebMD, and Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine, as well as in Split Lip, Hippocampus, Barren Magazine, and numerous other literary journals. She is also a contributor to Daring to Breathe, an anthology about living with the foreverness of grief. Casey is passionate about supporting those who grieve all manner of losses, including those that are spoken of and those too often shrouded in silence.
In addition, Casey serves as an Ambassador for the Family Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the genetic cardiovascular disorders that have affected her family across generations.
Casey lives in upstate New York with her husband, Kevin, a chatty orange tabby, and too many books to count. When not traveling, they enjoy visits from their four children and ten grandchildren—the very definition of “the full catastrophe. Learn more at www.caseymulliganwalsh.com.
PRAISE FOR
THE FULL CATASTROPHE
“A searingly beautiful testament to all the ways loss yields to love.”
-Claire Bidwell Smith, author of Conscious Grieving
“What Walsh learned through loss, heartbreak, disappointment, and new love brings hope to all of her lucky readers.”
-Ann Hood, author of Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“The Full Catastrophe is a profoundly moving examination of grief and resilience…this book is a triumph and an inspiration.”
-Richard Hoffman, author of Half the House
“The Full Catastrophe is a story of resilience that has a lot to teach us about honoring our grief and forgiving fate.”
-Katherine Wilemon, founder/CEO of The Family Heart Foundation
“A candid and spare look at motherhood, grief, and what it means to claim a life of one’s own…Walsh’s journey shows the potential for a life well-lived, even in the midst of great tragedy.
-Kelly Sundberg, author of Goodbye, Sweet Girl
“This heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful and gorgeously redemptive memoir reveals how one brave woman embraces the wrenching but also tender imperfection that defines the human family and, in so doing, makes her life her own.”
-Jeannine Ouellette, author of The Part That Burns
“In this beautifully written book, Walsh refuses the simple titles of victim or heroine, instead showing us what it truly means to embody the roles of daughter, wife and mother in the face of profound life-shattering loss.”
-Meghan Riordan Jarvis, author of End of the Hour
“My heart feels forever altered by this profoundly moving search for home and connection and meaning in a world rocked by loss. The Full Catastrophe is fully engaging, fully human, fully wrenching, fully healing, fully, ferociously alive.”
-Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis
“The Full Catastrophe is all that–a warm, generous, tragic yet ultimately hopeful story of a woman’s struggle for family, for understanding, for healing. Casey’s story had me turning pages all night.”
-Nerissa Nields, singer-songwriter and author of How to Be an Adult
“With vulnerability and honesty, Casey Mulligan Walsh has crafted an engrossing and universal story that will appeal to anyone who has lost one or more of their essential people and wants to know how–and if–it’s possible to build a life in the aftermath.”
-Margo Fowkes, author of Leading Through Loss
-Armen Bacon, co-author of Griefland and Daring to Breathe
“With courage and curiosity Casey Mulligan Walsh tells the story of surviving heartrending loss and what telling the truth can mean; The Full Catastrophe is unputdownable.”
-Ronit Plank, author of When She Comes Back
“ Written in clear, lovely language, we get an intimate portrait of a woman in distress, a woman who will not let loss defeat or define her.”
-Tavi Taylor Black, author of Serabelle