Rise Above: A Memoir

Rise Above: A Memoir

$36.00

Biographical Note: Matthew Schnipper is a New York City-based writer, editor, and Depop dealer. He writes the newsletter Deep Voices. Review Quotes: "This is a story that nobody should ever have to tell, yet Matthew...

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Biographical Note:
Matthew Schnipper is a New York City-based writer, editor, and Depop dealer. He writes the newsletter Deep Voices.

Review Quotes:
"This is a story that nobody should ever have to tell, yet Matthew Schnipper does so with grace, rawness, and beauty." --Hua Hsu, Pulitzer Prize winning and New York Times bestselling author of Stay True

"In Rise Above, Matthew Schnipper faces the unanswerable question of how to live in the aftermath of impossible grief. It is a sensitive, moving memoir, an exquisite portrait of a beloved child, and a testament to the relationships that sustain and bolster us in times of need." --Yaa Gyasi, NBCC Award-winning and bestselling author of Homegoing and Transcendent Kingdom

"Astoundingly intimate, generous, and tender, Rise Above is both a balm to despair and a bridge toward hope. With hard-won wisdom and honesty, Schnipper writes about the effort and unexpected joy of staying open to the world after profound loss through friendship, music, and memory. This is a story that explores the choice to keep loving life as an act not only of courage but of imagination. I am forever changed by it and deeply grateful it exists." --Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters

"So much writing about grief feels gauzy, platitudinous, simple. But Matthew Schnipper recounts the contours of his seismic loss with such a staggering amount of tenderness and honesty. I'm astounded by his capacity for love and earnest self-reflection in the face of bottomless pain; this book is a serious gift for anyone feeling unmoored and alone." --Amanda Petrusich, author of Do Not Sell at Any Price
"This pain-filled memoir is both a record of the author's coming to terms with the unspeakable through conscious struggle and the natural effects of time. It's also a remarkable tribute to the memory of a young child's potent presence during the time he was alive. It's a gift, intentional or not, to any reader who has suffered a loss of like magnitude and also to those who want to understand such loss." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A wrenching account of his toddler's sudden death . . . [Schnipper] wisely avoids tidy takeaways, offering readers a portrait of unresolved anguish that's both raw and artful. It's a powerful record of a broken heart." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

Publisher Marketing:
An unforgettable memoir of fatherhood, grief, and the life-saving power of love and art in the wake of unimaginable loss

"This is a story that nobody should ever have to tell, yet Matthew Schnipper does so with grace, rawness, and beauty."--Hua Hsu, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Stay True

Renzo Rollins Schnipper was born in February 2020, a split second before the beginning of the pandemic. To his parents, he was the reason for the universe's existence at a time when there was little hope to be found in the world. Then, on Christmas Eve 2021, a rare medical event suddenly took Renzo from them. Rise Above begins with an account of Renzo's short, but blazingly full, life from his father's perspective. Even as it is an account of grief, Matthew Schnipper's memoir is about resilience in the face of the unexpected turns life takes, and how to chart a path forward.

Schnipper chronicles the tragic, frustrating, and sometimes dumb ways that grief manifests, and how he tried to rise above the pain: friendships, text messages, carbs, a trip to Miami, phone calls with a rabbi, selling vintage clothing--and, perhaps most indelibly, his ever-changing relationship to music, his lifelong passion.

Rise Above follows this journey--from the shock and freefall following his son's death, to the desperate struggle to remember and honor Renzo's life. Schnipper's candid prose and clear-eyed storytelling tackles the darkest, most unfathomable elements of living, but also the miracle of love and the shimmering moments that ultimately give life meaning.

Review Citations:

  • Publishers Weekly 06/22/2026 (EAN 9780593730690, Hardcover) - *Starred Review