Death had been on author and poet Amber McBride’s mind for a while. In 2008, her father, Mario, had a near-death experience. Mario, who had prostate cancer, was scheduled for a simple surgery. But he struggled to regain consciousness after the operation. Under anesthesia, Mario said he saw himself peacefully floating above his own body until his long-dead grandmother told him to go back to the living world.

Death returned when McBride was teaching at the University of Virginia in 2022. A gunman killed three of the school’s football players in a mass shooting that stunned the campus. The horrific incident came not long after McBride had pondered writing about the cruel irony of children dying not long after their lives began.

“Children in general — their souls are just so young — it doesn

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