Kaia Gerber turned to Joan Didion’s writing for her latest public reflection on losing her older brother, Presley Gerber.
The model and actress, 25, posted a photograph of 11 books exploring loss, memory and mourning on Instagram on November 8. The following slide featured an excerpt from Didion’s work.
The carousel was a collaboration with Library Science, the literary project she founded with Alyssa Reeder. The book club highlights emerging writers and works beyond the usual bestseller lists.
Presley died on September 20 at 27, exactly seven weeks before the post. He was the oldest child of supermodel Cindy Crawford and businessman Rande Gerber.
Kaia Gerber Shares Didion’s Words About Grief
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“Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be,” the passage read. The excerpt describes bereavement arriving in waves that interrupt even the ordinary routines of daily life.
The words come from Didion’s 2005 memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, written after her husband, author John Gregory Dunne, died suddenly in December 2003.
Other titles in the photograph included Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart and From Here to the Great Unknown, the memoir by Lisa Marie Presley completed by her daughter Riley Keough, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Joe Brainard’s I Remember was also in the stack. Its brief recollections move between personal memories and details of everyday experience.
Her October Tribute Remembered Presley as a Protector
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Gerber’s October 18 tribute to Presley included a childhood home video, a photograph of the siblings on a beach and a letter presented across several slides.
She described him as her protector, friend and teacher, remembering his willingness to believe in people even when they treated him cruelly. His ability to remain kind and vulnerable was something she deeply admired.
“I got scared before getting my ears pierced, so you went first,” she wrote. She connected that experience to the pain of having to say goodbye to him before she was ready.
The letter also described searching through books without finding answers that could make sense of his absence. She was trying to understand how to remain his sister when she could no longer see him or pick up the phone to tell him something.
Even knowing how their time together would end, Gerber wrote that she would choose to have him as her brother again.
Cindy Crawford Shared a Message From the Family
On the same day, Crawford posted a black-and-white portrait of Presley with a statement signed by herself, Rande and Kaia. They expressed their heartbreak and gratitude for the years they had spent with him.
The family also thanked relatives, friends and strangers who had offered support.
Presley died at a residential recovery facility in Santa Monica, California. Police described his death as a suspected overdose, but the official cause and manner had not yet been determined, according to Us Weekly.
Presley Had Been Following Kaia’s Acting Work
Both siblings followed their mother into modeling. Presley began working in fashion as a teenager, appearing in campaigns and on runways for major designers.
At the September 16 SPECS launch in Beverly Hills, Kaia told PEOPLE about watching her FX series The Shards with her parents.
“My brother’s been watching, which is very sweet,” she said. “He sends me photos watching.”