Recently Published Pieces

“Sean Murphy writes of his loss in a way that is compelling and insightful. Anyone early in the process of grief should hear his message—that you never get over the death of a loved one, and that’s as it should be.”

—Elizabeth Rogers, Social Worker, Advanced Illness Management Program

May 27, 2015

Sean Murphy's NOT TO MENTION A NICE LIFE offers a voice rarely seen -- that whisper of human suffering that comes from an insular heart. It's as if the photo negative suddenly spoke, and claimed to be the real image, the real person behind the living color and magnetism of what we find in our everyday moment-to-moment existence. As Byron moves into and through his "Terrible Thirties," and the dot-com. boom of wild heights and terrifying drops, we move with him... but we also get to watch, and be that cautious eye which only has to watch, and doesn't have to be. Which is both blessing and curse in this romp of Americana, half FIGHT CLUB, half CATCHER IN THE RYE for the middle-aged. Regardless, I'm hooked -- and want to stay that way.

-Jesse Waters, author of Human Resources

May 26, 2015

Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone, which pulled me in from the first page and never let go, is a mosaic love letter from a son to his lost mother, so everyone in the bereavement club should read it. But this memoir is also a thoughtful, compassionate meditation on being alive. I nodded in recognition, dog-eared pages containing lines I loved, felt my eyes well with tears. In the end you should read it for the reason anyone reads good writing: to feel less alone.”

—Jenna Blum, NYT best-selling author of Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers

May 27, 2015

Murphy has provided a wry sendup of the manners and mores of 21st century American culture, which inspects all the Prufrockian frailties and foibles we carry through life.

–Martha’s Vineyard Times

May 22, 2015