All of This

All of This

  • Downloads:2002
  • Type:Epub+TxT+PDF+Mobi
  • Create Date:2021-11-21 07:21:08
  • Update Date:2025-09-06
  • Status:finish
  • Author:Rebecca Woolf
  • ISBN:0063052679
  • Environment:PC/Android/iPhone/iPad/Kindle

Summary

A beautifully written "grief-and-relief" memoir that addresses difficult truths we're afraid to admit about death, marriage, sex, and how the loss of a partner can lead to rebirth。

You don't know what kind of parent you're going to be until you have children。 You don't know what kind of wife you're going to be until years into your marriage。 And you don't know what kind of widow you're going to be until you leave the death bed of your spouse and begin a different life。

Rebecca and Hal had a normal marriage。 Four kids, a house, jobs that paid the bills。 They also had resentment that sometimes teetered on hatred, years of no sex, a handful of affairs, and long-simmering anger。

Then one night, Hal felt knots in his stomach。 Several doctor appointments later, he discovered he had stage four pancreatic cancer, and four months later, he was dead。 He was 44。

All of This chronicles the months before Hal's death--and Rebecca's rebirth after he was gone。 With incredible honesty, Rebecca reflects on how her husband's illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own: to love and to loathe him; to celebrate and criticize him, and finally, to forgive him and herself for escaping a marriage they no longer wanted。

Compelling and brilliantly nuanced, All of This is one woman's story of what it means to be a mother, a widow, and a sexual being, finding freedom on the other side of a relationship that nearly broke her。

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Reviews

Jenny Lawson

An authentic and profound book on the complexities of grief, desire and being human。

Roxane

I thought about this book for quite a long time after I finished it, trying to decide how I felt about it。 This is definitely going to be a polarizing memoir。 What works especially well is the moving account of a woman who becomes a widow to a man she was planning to leave before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer。 It's one of those impossible circumstances we so rarely hear about because it is messy and uncomfortable。 It is a circumstance that is rarely shared and especially with such honest I thought about this book for quite a long time after I finished it, trying to decide how I felt about it。 This is definitely going to be a polarizing memoir。 What works especially well is the moving account of a woman who becomes a widow to a man she was planning to leave before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer。 It's one of those impossible circumstances we so rarely hear about because it is messy and uncomfortable。 It is a circumstance that is rarely shared and especially with such honesty。 Nothing is held back and there is a generosity to Woolf's deceased husband coupled with an open acknowledgment of her truths, such that these people are seen as themselves rather than the idealized versions you might expect。 And that's also where I paused。 Because at times I wondered if I was witnessing radical honesty or radical rationalizations, not with the dissolution of the marriage, at all, but with some of the tone of the narratives about infidelity and new relationships, etc。 No judgments! But I'll be curious to hear what other people think of certain aspects of the memoir。 But what matters most is that it is beautifully written, complex, provocative, painful, genuine, and then the ending kind of falls apart like the author did not quite know where to take the narrative once she reached a certain point。 It's okay! It's still an unforgettable memoir, and very unique。 (In a good way。) 。。。more