In a work unlike anything she's written before, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates unveils a poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of her husband of forty-six years and its wrenching, surprising aftermath.
On a February morning in 2008, Joyce Carol Oates drove her ailing husband, Raymond Smith, to the emergency room of the Princeton Medical Center where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Both Joyce and Ray expected him to be released in a day or two. But in less than a week, even as Joyce was preparing for his discharge, Ray died from a virulent hospital-acquired infection, and Joyce was suddenly faced—totally unprepared—with the stunning reality of widowhood.
A Widow's Story illuminates one woman's struggle to comprehend a life without the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century. As never before, Joyce Carol Oates shares the derangement of denial, the anguish of loss, the disorientation of the survivor amid a nightmare of "death-duties," and the solace of friendship. She writes unflinchingly of the experience of grief—the almost unbearable suspense of the hospital vigil, the treacherous "pools" of memory that surround us, the vocabulary of illness, the absurdities of commercialized forms of mourning. Here is a frank acknowledgment of the widow's desperation— only gradually yielding to the recognition that "this is my life now."
Enlivened by the piercing vision, acute perception, and mordant humor that are the hallmarks of the work of Joyce Carol Oates, this moving tale of life and death, love and grief, offers a candid, never-before-glimpsed view of the acclaimed author and fiercely private woman.
Joe says:
"Imagine being married to one person for forty-eight years. Imagine that one person being the only person you have ever been with. Imagine that this person, with whom you have lived with for all but two months of those 48 years, and with whom you have shared a life, but not shared everything you think, were to suddenly and rather unexpectedly die. Would you be bereft? Guilty? Angry? Suicidal?
This nightmare scenario happened to the acclaimed and award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates. A Widow's Story is her memoir about the aftermath of her beloved husband's death. It is very much a book about survival. It is also a very intimate account of one person's grief. She does not strive to say this is how you will grieve were this to happen to you. This is what happened to her. This is a touching love story, as she retraces their entwined lives from 1960's Milwaukee to 2008 Princeton, New Jersey. This is the story of a writer and an editor, and the
lives they led. The cast of characters include many well-known authors, including one of Joyce's best friends, Edmund White. These friends do their best to help her through her very personal grief. But it is ultimately her recounting of their life together, and her getting to know her husband through an unpublished novel, that I feel allowed her to write this book, to survive as only she knows how: as a writer. This book is a fascinating and at times humorous look at our culture: of prescribed notions of grieving, of the role of pharmaceuticals in our lives, of the role of writer, teacher, editor in our culture.
While reading, I found that I underlined and circled a lot of passages, dog-earing pages so I can go back to read them. This book contains so many interesting observations about our culture, instructions for writing and for living the examined life.
To whom would I recommend this book? To writers, to students, to educators. To folks in relationships who do not want to think of their partner dying. For people who have lost someone they love. For bookclubs, this book will provide much discussion material. Really, to nearly everyone, for this book is ultimately, a book about living, and finding meaning as we live."
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