Rob Errera

Writer. Editor. Publisher. Musician. Autism Dad.

  • Home
  • Autism Dad
  • Books
  • Music
  • Book Reviews
  • Custom Guitars
  • Contact
  • Store

A Widow’s Story: A Memoir by Joyce Carol Oates

February 21, 2015 by Bob Leave a Comment

A Widow's Story: A Memoir by Joyce Carol Oates

A Widow’s Story: A Memoir by Joyce Carol Oates

“Give sorrow words,” William Shakespeare says. “The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.”

Joyce Carol Oates gives her sorrow words in A Widow’s Story: A Memoir, which chronicles the death of her longtime husband, Ontario Review editor, Ray Smith, and the first year of Oates’ widowhood.

“Widowhood is the punishment for having been a wife,” Oates writes in this powerful and poignant memoir.

If life were fair, couples that have been married for decades (Oates and Smith were together for 47 years and 25 days, Oates frequently points out) should be allowed to die together.

But life is anything but fair, and it’s the job of survivors to carry on after the loss of a loved one, no mater how impossible that may seem, as Oates observes:

   “Losing a spouse of 47 years is like losing a part of yourself— the most valuable part. What is left behind seems so depleted, broken … But this determination to manage—to cope—to do as much unassisted as possible— is the widow’s prerogative.”

Losing a spouse can drain life of flavor and meaning, leaving the survivor a shell of themselves, as Oates notes:

   “As a widow I will be reduced to a world of things. And these things retain but the faintest glimmer of their original identity and meaning as in a dead and desiccated husk of something once organic there might be discerned a glimmer of its original identity and meaning.”

Oates also examines the frailty of life and the delicate balance of bio-chemistry that makes us human:

Harrowing to think that our identities— the selves people believe they recognize in us: our “personalities”— are a matter of oxygen, water and food and sleep— deprived of just one of these our physical beings begin to alter almost immediately— soon, to others we are no longer “ourselves”— and yet, who else are we?

It’s impossible not to compare Oates’ A Widow’s Story to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Both women are literary powerhouses examining the depths of grief following the death of their husbands. Oates subtlety references Didion’s work, and her own “magical thinking” during her husband’s short illness and death. Oates and Didion both imagine their husbands “just coming home,” putting an end to the endless nightmare of widowhood. Magical thinking is a nice way of saying delusional or wishful thinking.

Widowhood forces a kind of exile, an otherness, as the widow moves through day-to-day life like a ghost.

   “I could be a paraplegic observing dancers— it isn’t even envy I feel for them, almost a kind of disbelief, they are so utterly different from me, and so oblivious.”

And a life devoid of meaning, isn’t really a life at all, Oates says:

“To be human is to live with meaning. To live without meaning is to live sub-humanly.”

“Giving sorrow words” is both painful and healing, and perhaps the only way back to the “land of the living” for a writer, as Oates notes in a letter to a fellow author.

   “It’s difficult to write when there’s no joy. (I haven’t gotten started again, myself.) Yet it’s our only way out. Isn’t it?”

Though deeply steeped in sorrow, The Widow’s Story: A Memoir is ultimately a story of survival and rebirth. Oates knows whom to thank for helping her through the early days of widowhood.

   “The blunt truth is: I would (very likely) not be alive except for my friends.”

She also finds recovery and reconnection by embracing her late husband’s favorite hobby: gardening:

   “A gardener is one for whom the prospect of the future is not threatening but happy.”

In the end, Oates finds the strength to carry on, even if it’s a “half-life” frequently filled with sorrow and loss.

   “This is my life now. Absurd, but unpredictable. Not absurd because unpredictable but unpredictable because absurd. If I have lost the meaning of my life, and the love of my life, I might still find small treasured things amid the spilled and pilfered trash.”

We can all appreciate the world forged from Oates’ personal pain, a world where life is simultaneously absurd, unpredictable and incredibility precious.

-30-

 

Share the love!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Book Review, Memoir, NonFiction Tagged With: A Memoir, A Widow’s Story, book review, grief, human frailty, Joyce Carol Oates, love story, recovery, sorrow

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Home
  • Autism Dad
  • Books
  • Music
  • Book Reviews
  • Custom Guitars
  • Contact
  • Store

New Thriller! The Mud Man!

Born of mud.

Made for murder.

New! Autism Dad 3: Life Skills and Life Lessons!

Get A Job, Son!

Rob Rants About…

age of apology amateur writing autism Autism Dad blogging book review Brian Keene C. L. Holmes College Conjure Wife debut novel digital ban digital literature digitize classics digitize Salinger education Edward Lee family fatherhood Fritz Leiber future of publishing horror horror fiction Jack Ketchum Joe Hill John FD Taff journalism love story Lucky McKee memoir musical fiction mythology near-death experience new book no Salinger ebooks now available Our Great Abbess revenge tale Salinger Estate satire self publishing sensual nightmares short stories Stephen King weird

“Spine-Tingling Tales of Musical Terror!”

New Release! Autism Dad 2!

Autism Dad 2—'Tween Edition: Continuing Adventures in Autism, Adolescence & Fatherhood 
Get it @ Amazon!
   kindle
Get it@ Barnes & Noble!  nook
Get it@ Smashwords!   smashwords
Get it @ Createspace! Autism Dad 2: Autism, Adolescence & Fatherhood by Rob Errera

“Bloodcurdling Historical Horror!”

Our Great Abbess by C.L. Holmes

Get it @ Amazon!   kindle
Get it@ Barnes & Noble!  nook
Get it@ Smashwords!   smashwords

Dig The Enzertones!

Like It! Click It!

Like It! Click It!

Follow Rob!

Tweets by @haikubob

RSS

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

“Informative, poignant and engaging!”

Autism Dad: Adventures in Raising An Autistic Son
Autism Dad: Adventures in Raising An Autistic Son, $9.95 trade paperback / $3.99 ebook.
@ Amazon! kindle

@ Barnes & Noble! nook

@ Smashwords! smashwords

@ Createspace! Autism Dad: Adventures in Raising An Autistic Son by Rob Errera

More great posts!

buttons head

Homegrown Puppies or How We Fostered A Pregnant Stray Dog

Back in January 2013, my wife and I fostered a pregnant dog named Buttons. Buttons was on the “kill list” at a shelter in West Virginia, but some kindly animal rescuers transported her to the Bloomingdale Animal Shelter Society in Bloomingdale, NJ. We agreed to foster Buttons, and find homes for her and her puppies. […]

Rob Errera – Blogger

Hey, blogosphere! This is my first post, so be gentle!  The first thing you should know is I’M NOT A BLOGGER. I’m a syndicated newspaper columnist with over twenty years of writing, reporting and editing experience. Ink flows and trees fall so that my work may live! I’m not bragging, but I’d like to think […]

Fighting A Losing Battle Against Roots, Wings, and Time

She’s going, and that’s all there is to it. My nine-year-old daughter got invited to spend a week with her cousins at their lake house in New Hampshire. It’s been in the planning stages for weeks, and she’s got everything worked out. She knows what outfits to pack, which shampoos to bring, and which stuffed […]

“This book rocked my world!”

Hangman's Jam, A Symphony of Terror by Rob Errera

Buy it at Amazon! Hangman's Jam: A Symphony of Terror by Rob Errera.

Buy it at Barnes and Noble! Hangman's Jam: A Symphony of Terror by Rob Errera.

Buy it at Smashwords! Hangman's Jam: A Symphony of Terror by Rob Errera.

Buy it at Createspace! Hangman's Jam: A Symphony of Terror by Rob Errera.

Copyright © 2023 · News Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in