Once I began reading Holden After and Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose (Arsenal Pulp), Tara McGuire’s memoir about her son Holden and his death from an accidental opioid overdose at the age of twenty-one, I couldn’t put it down. Using memoir, non-fiction and fictional recreations, this is a story told from inside a family dealing with substance abuse disorder, complete with all the fears, the worries, the sorrows and the frustrations. After Holden’s death, McGuire’s need to understand all this takes her on a journey into uncharted territory of the heart. McGuire takes us behind the headlines of the opioid crisis, and tells us about her son Holden. She shares the real, complicated and wonderful young man Holden was. He was a graffiti artist. A skateboarder. A son. A brother. An art student. He was confused and anxious. McGuire explores the squats, lofts, alleys and bars Holden frequented in the community of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Most importantly, she talks to Holden’s friends. After his death, Holden’s friends created a mural just off Main Street in Vancouver in his memory, as part of the Vancouver Mural Festival. McGuire scattered some of Holden’s ashes into one of the artists’ paint trays, and Holden became a part of his own mural. The Holden Courage mural is at 1502 Main Street, in a parking lot. I went there to see it and had a moment, with Holden—this smiling young man I felt I knew, thanks to his mother’s breathtaking book.

—Peggy Thompson

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