Great Regulars: Was it weird to encounter yourself

as a character in a book? To read about Mom's illness? What was this like?

While reading the book, particularly those sections that dealt with the final months of your mom's illness and death, it was gut-wrenching to relive that experience. I never really thought of myself as a character in a story--or the story--but I certainly have wondered at times what I sound like to readers. I did have a few odd encounters with strangers at the book party right after the book came out. To some of the people who came up and introduced themselves to me I was clearly a character in the book, more so than the father of the author for whom the party had been thrown. It was only the next morning that I realized the reason for the somewhat awkward exchanges I had with those people. That was weird.

from Meghan O'Rourke, and her father Paul O'Rourke: Huffington Post: A Father and a Daughter Talk About Loss: What It Was Like to Grieve a Wife and Mother

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