A Widow's Story: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Divided into 88 segments, mostly short, this book opens with an episode in which Joyce finds an abusive note on the windscreen of her car, complaining of her parking. In the next segment, she and husband Ray Smith are involved in a serious motor accident that could easily have been fatal, but the injuries they sustain are mostly inflicted only by the explosively inflating airbags. In segment three, Joyce takes Ray to the Emergency Room of the Princeton Medical Center, where he is found to have E.coli pneumonia. In segment fourteen, he dies.

Much of what happens before Ray dies is a waking nightmare. But for Joyce matters are not yet done with moving from bad to worse; the nightmare still has a long way to run.

Clearing the hospital room of Ray's belongings, selecting and visiting an undertaker and buying a burial plot are still not the worst of it. Joyce calls the phase immediately following the death 'pre-widowhood', when the widow hasn't yet got it - what it will mean to inhabit a free-fall world from which meaning has been drained. Beyond that is the 'post-humous life' - life after Ray - which for months to come is worse yet; worst of all.

We know Joyce will eventually be OK when she responds to a floral tribute that warns "Important: decorative plant mosses should not be eaten" with 'A widow may be deranged, but a widow is not that deranged.' Nevertheless, for several months both present and future appear utterly bleak.

She develops various coping mechanisms, such as 'each day is livable if divided into segments - Morning - Afternoon I - Afternoon II - Evening - Night'. Afternoons and evenings are often helped along by teaching and public reading engagements, where she 'impersonates' Joyce Carol Oates, as distinct from being herself, the widow Joyce Smith. At night, too often sleepless, her thoughts turn suicidal. She reflects objectively on the attractions of suicide, but when she quotes Nietzsche, "The thought of suicide is a strong consolation; one can get through many a bad night with it", we are again reassured; neither her balance nor her sense of irony have been lost.

As the outlook slowly improves, the memoir becomes all that we had dared hope of an author who is as articulate, eloquent and distinctive as Joyce Carol Oates. We learn much of Joyce and Ray's courtship, their long and happy marriage, their families and careers. There are reflections on teaching, on writing, on editing (Ray's forte) and, just occasionally, a view on university politics or America as it was and has become. Some of the names dropped are well-known authors, and there is clearly much affection and mutual support within that world. Some condolences and well-intended words of encouragement are crass, but the best are very helpful indeed and, like many of Joyce's own observations, will be noted by the precautious reader for possible future application.

Ultimately, Joyce's message is that whilst widowhood is not a condition in any way to be desired, it is survivable. Besides being an excellent read, this valuable book is full of possible aids to that survival. 'On the first anniversary of the husband's death, the widow should think "I kept myself alive."'

I was hesitant to take this book as I thought it would be full of sentimentality and rather depressing to read. In fact it is a matter of fact account of a widow trying to cope with the sudden death of her husband and the guilt she felt because she was not with him when he died and because she had insisted on taking him to the Emergency Room. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book but did find the second half more difficult as it seemed to wander aimlessly through the pages and seemed rather too analytical. I am not a widow but as a nurse dealt with many new widows and in family life suffered bereavements I recognise many stages of the grieving process described with such frank honesty by Ms. Oates such as the guilt, confusion, staring into space forgetting he is dead for a minute and many other signs. I found her coping mechanisms extremely interesting. Her love for Ray was obvious and I found myself thinking I would have loved to meet him. I think because of the lack of sentiment that widows or those helping widows might benefit from the book but also any one who has lost someone would be able to identify with many points and realise that their own reactions were entirely normal. The teaching of theory of bereavement is notoriously difficult so I would also recommend it to nurses and other professionals dealing with the subject.

Joyce Carol Oates' thought provoking memoir lingers days after completion. It is touching and affecting, but for me it is not so much the emotional intensity of the experiences she describes with such openness that remains days after - in fact much of the book has an objective quality that, whilst moving, does not, at least for me, sweep the reader along on a wave of high, tormented emotion: its effect, I think, is more understated than that.

Oates' exploration of the impact of grief on her sense of self is especially compelling. She has become `the widow', `the executrix', a functionary defined by her overwhelming grief and the new role it gives her: her `other' selves, Joyce Smith (the wife, friend, teacher etc) and Joyce Carol Oates (the esteemed and prolific writer) seem false, alien and unimportant, no longer real or worthwhile now that her husband is dead. She resumes the persona of teacher surprisingly soon, but is horrified that some students offer sympathy: they must be aware of this `non-person' beneath the charade. She returns to the world of literary talks, addresses to student groups etc, almost watching herself from the outside, this figure quite disengaged from the consciousness her daily life inhabits. She is pleased, but amazed when people comment that she is `doing well': in fact, her world is broken.

She quotes Nietzsche tellingly (the text is full of interesting references to writers whom Oates admires): 'What someone is, begins to be revealed when his talent abates, when he stops showing what he can do'. Her response is: `To this the widow can add: What I am begins to be revealed now that I am alone. In such revelation is terror.' Now that Ray is dead, she is merely `the widow' who must behave as widows behave. (The phrase `death duties' takes on a telling resonance.) She fears public breakdown, exposing the nothingness she feels she has become and repeatedly returns to thoughts of suicide, shored up by a stock of pills squirreled away against that eventuality. She even begins to wonder if she really knew her husband, potentially destroying what has become the only aspect of herself she now identifies as her self.

She itemises the occasions when condolences misfire with almost willful disregard for her feelings: those who are desperate to show support by inviting her to dinner, but who resolutely ignore her wishes and try to insist on a table of 18. In truth they fear her grief undiluted by distractions which will prevent the intimacy they cannot face. When she feels compelled to repeat her request for a much smaller gathering, the email exchange dries up ..... She is deluged with bizarre tokens of sympathy which create another burden for her to deal with. These gestures seem mere cyphers of care hiding the inadequacy many of us have in responding to death and others' loss.

But it is the acts of kindness and words of close friends which count for most, those who understand and support, not offering saccharine comfort but truthful recognition of her pain and its inevitability: `One breath at a time, Joyce. One breath at a time.' `Oh God - you are going to be so unhappy.' `Suffer, Joyce. Ray was worth it!' And suffer she does.

This sounds like a sombre read, but it isn't unduly so. I found it compulsive , perhaps a little long and with a sense that it was a fairly unmediated project, which also perhaps contributes to the rawness appropriate to the subject matter. I found it hard to put down. For me, the book is not so much about grief (even less is it some sort of guide for those recently bereaved): for me its most interesting reflections are on the essence of true relationships, the importance, but also the cost of loving and being loved, who we feel we are and how we face mortality, our own as well as others'. And a careful reading of the last pages offers evidence of the banal truth that grief can be, if not overcome, then tamed, opening us up to the possibility that we can rediscover life's savour. As she gives more background, towards the end of the book, of the 'happy chance' of the origins and development of her relationship with her husband, she hints at the appearance of another important chance encounter. I can only feel very pleased for her.