New Book Alert!

A Friend's Memoir

I’m so pleased for my friends who have traveled the long, arduous road to publication and am excited for their books to land in the world. Casey Mulligan Walsh is one of those dear friends I’ve never met, having connected via social media and through online writing friends. We share the hard, sad experience of child loss.

I’m fortunate to have had an advanced reader copy of her forthcoming memoir, and I can attest this is a lovely, powerful book told in unflinching and elegant prose. I’m going to hand over the rest of this post to her, and let her tell you about her book, now available for preorder.

From Casey:

“Grief, the need to belong, and the struggle to persevere when all seems lost are universal, timeless experiences. Reading about those who have come through the fire and were forced to rebuild their lives from a new foundation as I was can help others choose how they frame their own stories and has the power to transform a life of sorrow into one of joy and redemption.  In writing The Full Catastrophe, I hoped to illustrate how losses—especially losses that come before we’ve reached adulthood—can cause us to question what we believe and dictate the decisions we make for years to come. Similarly, embracing spirituality and choosing to see the world through a different lens can affect the way we think, the choices we make, and ultimately who we become. 

This excerpt appears relatively early in the book. At twelve, I’m living with relatives in another state after my parents died and thinking back to life “before,” which seems more like a fairy tale than the childhood I actually experienced. At five years old, I still had parents and a brother, but that wouldn’t last. Each weekend, I attended Sunday School by myself, as I would for years to come. Already harboring strong ideas about what a perfect family should look like (different in many ways from my own), I clung to the comfort of the spiritual mysteries of church and the surrogate family I found there. I had no idea, of course, where life would take me or how my understanding of love in all its forms would—and wouldn’t—change over time. For the moment, I was a tiny sponge, and I knew one incontrovertible truth for sure: Love solves everything. The seeds of a lifetime of spiritual searching had already been planted.

Excerpt:

If someone had asked me at five about what I believed—though no one did—hands on hips, teary and feisty all at once, I’d have set them straight: 

“First of all, families shouldn't fight. Daddies should do things with their kids—the girls, too, not just the boys. Big brothers should protect their sisters and say things like, ‘Pick on my little sister and you're dead meat.’ If you're nice, people should be nice back. Little kids should have a say. 

“And families should go to church. In my family, it's just me there in that pew. I go every Sunday in my best dress, right out the front door and across the street to the Northern Valley Evangelical Free Church, where Mrs. Olsen teaches us about Jesus and heaven and how we should love everybody.” 

One Sunday morning, I worked up the nerve to raise my hand.

“Yes, Casey?"             

"Even Khrushchev? We should love Khrushchev?" 

"Yes, Casey, even Khrushchev. Love is a powerful thing."        

Then we sang “This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let it Shine.” I wanted my light to shine, I really did. I just couldn’t figure out how I could love someone who might kill us all.      

When I'm the mother, I thought, curled up in bed with my books and cuddling the matted, floppy-eared stuffed puppy I loved best, things will be different. My kids will take care of each other, and I’ll listen to them just like I listen to the grownups. Their lights will shine all right. 

The world was full of danger—snakes that slithered in the tall grass behind our house, fires burning miles away, mean kids in the neighborhood. But more than anything, I was scared someone might rob or, worse yet, hurt us. After a woman was found murdered in her bathtub less than a mile from our house, we began locking our doors. 

“Could someone break in?” I asked Mom. My frequent nightmares wouldn’t stop. 

But one night, I had another dream. I ran into the house after an afternoon playing outside to find Mommy, Daddy, and Tommy held hostage in the living room. A man—a Bad Guy—was holed up in the kitchen, planning his next move. 

I looked at my parents and my big brother tied up with ropes, gagged with bandannas, writhing in their chairs. I turned to see the Bad Guy sitting at the kitchen table. He could kill them all. 

He’s a person, just like us. I’ll bet he loves his family, too. I took a deep breath and walked in. 

"My name is Casey Colleen Mulligan. Please don't hurt my family." 

I could hear Mrs. Olsen’s voice in my head: Use the most powerful thing you have.

"I love you," I said in my strongest, bravest voice. I smiled my biggest Irish smile.

The Bad Guy stared at me. I stared back at him. 

I wasn't scared.                  

His face went soft. "Your family is safe, little girl. Because of you."

I woke up to a sunny Saturday. My friend Nancy was at the door, wanting to play. The house smelled like Mom's crunchy French toast, dusted with powdered sugar from the old metal shaker. Tommy let me listen to his Elvis 45’s over and over so I could learn all the words to “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” and pretend to be a star. Dad sat in his recliner, laughing and teasing me, his favorite little girl.

Today, everything is just the way it should be. I was pretty sure God could see my light shining all the way from Magnolia Street. 

More about the author:

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 on February 18, 2025. She has written for The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Barren, and numerous other media outlets and literary journals. Casey’s essay, “Still,” published in Split Lip, was nominated for Best of the Net. She is a founding editor of In a Flash literary magazine. She also serves as an ambassador for and on the Board of the Family Heart Foundation, which raises 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.