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Jun 14, 2014modestgoddess rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Confess I felt a lot of frustration at first, reading this. It gives the impression that absolutely no one could have done anything to alleviate JCO's desperation and anguish - that nothing would have worked. But - by the end of the book, I came to realize that perhaps, that was so. She and her husband were devoted to each other. I came to understand how utterly bereft she felt when he died - how they had been almost a nation of two, separate but completely dependent on each other. However - I have to agree with the commenter who calls this book a "pity party" - there were many times I wanted to reach into its pages and give JCO a good hard smack (something she even suggests, at one point, she might have benefitted from). She seemed lost in the negatives of the situation, kept thinking of suicide, and couldn't even take joy from delightful things Ray Smith had left behind - even finding his beautiful garden offensive at first. There was no celebration of his rich life - only annoying wailing about the position in which his death had left her and a resistance to accepting comfort, even from friends. I grew weary of the "only-a-widow-understands-a-widow" schtick and the frequent reminders that all these happy wives she sees around her are likely going to be widows one day too. The main take-away for me, from this, was how unfortunate people are when they have neither faith, nor children - two things that bring extraordinary meaning to life. Poor JCO. For all her amazing, prolific career, she is quite pathetic and annoying here. Only on the first page of Chapter 50 is there any relief from the howling nagging relentless anguish of being "the widow" - when she FINALLY thinks more positively about Ray and realizes how good his life had been and how he probably never saw his death coming, so didn't suffer. Mind you, that happy thought lasted less than a paragraph and took a lot of slogging through miserable wastelands to get to.... But the book seemed to me to get better after this revelation - more palatable.