On November 16, 1965, Beth Taylor’s idyllic childhood was shattered at age twelve by the suicide of her older brother Geoff. Raised in an “intentional community” north of Philadelphia—a mix of farm village, hippie commune, and suburb—she and her siblings were instilled with nonconformist values and respect for the Quaker tradition. With the loss of her beloved brother, Taylor began her complicated journey to understand family, loss, and faith.

Written after years of contemplation, The Plain Language of Love and Loss reflects on the meaning of death and loss for three generations of Taylor’s family and their friends. Her compelling portrait of Geoff reveals a boy whose understanding of who he was came under increasing attack. He was harassed by schoolmates for being a “commie pinko coward” and he tried to appease fellow Boy Scouts after he abstained from a support-the-troops rally. Touching on the timely issues of bullying, child rearing, and nonconformity, Taylor offers a rare look at growing up Quaker in the tumultuous 1960s.

Taylor tells how each stage of her life exposed clues to the subtle damage wrought by tragedy, even while it revealed varieties of solace found in friendships, marriage, and parenting. As she struggles to understand the complexities of religious heritage, patriotism, and pacifism, she weaves the story of her own family together with the larger history of Quakers in the Northeast, showing the importance of family values and the impact of religious education.

Beth Taylor says that she learned many things from her childhood, in particular that history is alive—and shapes how we judge ourselves and choose to live our lives. She comes to see that grief can be a mask, a lover, and a teacher.

Beth Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department’s Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

"Beth Taylor's memoir is one of the most tender and moving books I've read in a long time.  Written with poise and grace, never falling into self-pity, The Plain Language of Love and Loss will surely touch the heart of anyone who has found the means to salvage a kind of meaning out of great tragedy. This is a book I will not forget."—Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods

"The Plain Language of Love and Loss blesses us all with its wisdom and grace. It is a luminous, powerful, and unforgettable book that is ultimately a triumph of the human spirit and a sister's love."—Laura Palmer, author of Shrapnel in the Heart and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Escape

 “This tender narrative is, on the surface, about Quakers and Quakerism in modern America. It is about one family’s struggle to align its spiritual strivings with the realities of human limitations and the uncontrollability of circumstance. And it is about some of the ways that the Vietnam War era indelibly marked America. But it is also about much, much more, and anyone who has raised (or is raising) children will empathize here with the poignant collage of tragedy, vulnerability, humdrum, and triumph, as well as the bittersweet canvas of both community and isolation upon which the hues of all our lives are painted.”—Emma Jones Lapsansky-Werner, Professor of History and Curator of the Quaker Collection at Haverford College and coeditor of Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption, 1720–1920