If There Are Any Heavens
A Memoir
Nicholas Montemarano

On January 6, 2021, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, while the U.S. Capitol is under attack, Nicholas Montemarano drives six hundred miles to see his mother, who is hospitalized with COVID pneumonia and in a critical state. For ten days he lives in a hotel minutes from the hospital, alternating between hope and helplessness. This is the story of those ten days.

Written with visceral urgency in the earliest days of grief, If There Are Any Heavens resists categorization: it is a memoir, a poem, a mournful but loving song. It is an almost real-time account of the anxiety, uncertainty, and sorrow brought on by this pandemic. It is also, finally, a devastating homage to a family’s love in a time of great loss.

“If There Are Any Heavens joins a handful of heartbreaking books written in the white-hot storm of grief. In some ways it is reportage, a document salvaged from the wreckage of our pandemic. In some way it read like a play, a monologue unspooling in real time.”
—Nick Flynn, author of This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire

“A masterpiece that transcends genre. An astonishing achievement. Timely and timeless.”
—Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

Nicholas Montemarano is the author of three novels and a short story collection. His stories have appeared in Esquire, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Southern Review, and many other publications. His writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the Alumni Professor of Creative Writing and Belles Lettres at Franklin & Marshall College.

Hardcover / $24.00 (Can $32.00) / ISBN 978-0-89255-557-4/ 168 pages / Memoir