The Guardians: An Elegy for a Friend

An unidentified white man was struck and instantly killed by a Metro-North train last night reported the July 24 2008 edition of the Riverdale Press. This man was named Harris and The Guardians―written in the years after he escaped from a psychiatric hospital and ended his life―is Sarah Mangusos heartbreaking elegy.. Harris was a man who played music wrote software wrote music learned to drive went to college went to bed with girls. In The Guardians Manguso grieves not for family or for a lover but for a best friend. With startling humor and candor she paints a portrait of a friendship between a man and a woman―in all its unexpected detail―and shows that love and grief do not always take the shapes we expect them to.