Cheryl Strayed Says Brian Lindstrom Dies at 65 After Illness
Brian Lindstrom died on Friday at 65, Cheryl Strayed said in a statement that named the illness as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. She said she, Carver, and Bobbi were with him when he took his last breath.
Strayed’s account turns the loss into a family and craft story at once: more than thirty years of partnership ended in a single day, and a filmmaker known for stories about people pushed to the margins is gone at 65.
Strayed’s Friday announcement
“Brian Lindstrom died this morning the way he lived—with gentleness and courage, grace and gratitude for his beautiful life. Our children, Carver and Bobbi, and I held him as he took his last breath and we will hold him forever in our hearts,” Strayed wrote in her Instagram statement announcing his death. She also called him “the most magnificent dad” and said, “What tremendous luck it was to be his partner for more than thirty years.”
That language leaves no distance between the public announcement and the private loss. For readers following Strayed’s work, the immediate takeaway is simple: the family has already said goodbye, and the loss is being handled on their terms rather than through a staged release cycle.
More than thirty years together
Strayed said she first met Lindstrom in 1995, and their partnership lasted more than thirty years. She also said she canceled her writing workshop and an upcoming appearance at Hunter College to stay by his side after revealing on May 1 that he had been diagnosed with a serious, fatal illness.
That sequence is the sharpest piece of context in the story: the diagnosis came first, then the schedule changes, then the death. For anyone watching Strayed’s public calendar, the practical answer is already on the record — she stepped away before Friday, and she is not treating this as a normal professional interval.
Lindstrom’s film work
Lindstrom directed Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse in 2013, We Are Forbidden in 2019, and Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill in 2022. Strayed said he made films about incarcerated moms and their kids, people with mental illness and substance use disorders, teens living in homeless shelters, foster care, detention centers, and people at the bottom and trying to climb up.
“society puts an X through,” Strayed said of the people his films followed. “He erased that X with his camera and his astonishing heart.” That is the clearest line connecting his documentaries: they were built around people other entertainment stories often flatten into background.
Carver, Bobbi, and what comes next
“We do not know how we will live without him. We’re utterly bereft. We can only walk this dark path and search for the beauty Brian knew was there. It will be his eternal light that guides us,” Strayed wrote at the end of her tribute. The immediate next step is not a public event or a release; it is the family’s private process after a death that ends a marriage, a parenthood, and a body of work focused on people struggling to be seen.
For readers who knew Lindstrom only through Strayed’s books and later screen work, the conclusion is stark: the artist behind those films is gone, and the public record now rests on the family’s words, the dates she gave, and the work he left behind.
