New Book: Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan

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Read: August 2022

Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan

by Hillary Jordan

Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan is a book about grief as the two protagonists take a road trip that is a darkly funny journey of healing that takes them deep into the heart of their suffering and others, and then beyond it, to a place of peace and laughter. I had just finished reading When She Woke by Ms. Jordan and having enjoyed that book, reading a second one by the same author seemed reasonable.

When I selected this short novel to read, I questioned if it was a good choice for me.

I found it easier to read and, in some ways, helpful. It was like meeting fellow widows from my Zoom grief groups in person at Camp Widow. The ability to laugh about our loss and cry openly is essential to meeting fellow benefits.

Michael Larssen, the narrator, raised a question I have not and still do not want to consider. What if I am still alive, Jan was a great love but is not the love of my life?

“You can’t know that he was the love of your life, and do you know why? Because guess what, you aren’t dead yet. You may feel dead right now, and believe me I’ve been there, but the fact is, until you’re lying under a tombstone of your own you can’t be sure about anything. You could prick your finger on one of your roses tomorrow, and as you’re climbing the stairs to get a Band-Aid, you trip over one of the pugs and tumble to your death. Or you could meet a man in the checkout line at the grocery store–hell, you could meet a woman even and fall madly in love with her and end up with six kids and twenty grandkids. Michael looks over at Elena, then back at George. You just don’t know, George. That’s the thing. None of us does.”— Aftermirth (Kindle Single) by Hillary Jordan

Despite my anxiety about considering this disturbing question, I highly recommend Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

I stopped being funny the day my wife was electrocuted by her underwire bra.” So begins “Aftermirth,” a dark comedy that explores the absurdity of death through the eyes of thirty-one-year-old comedian, writer, and actor Michael Larssen. What is funny to the rest of the world is devastating to Michael, who loves his wife deeply, exceptionally her bright, rippling, abandoned laughter, which captivated him from the first time he heard it. In the aftermath of her death, he loses his sense of humor and his career.

Then, after two years of mourning her, he sees an article in the paper about a factory worker named Julio Santiago who fell into a giant vat of dough and was kneaded to death. For reasons Michael doesn’t understand, he decides to go to the man’s wake. There he meets and bonds with Julio’s twenty-nine-year-old daughter Elena, a law student who is reeling from her father’s unexpected and preposterous death.

Three months later, she calls him out of the blue and suggests that the two of them drive to North Carolina to speak with another survivor like themselves Elena has found on the Internet. Their road trip is a darkly funny journey of healing that takes them deep into the heart of their grief and others and then beyond it to a place of peace and laughter.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: May 2024

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You Are Here: A Novel

by David Nicholls

I began reading “You Are Here: A Novel” by David Nicholls today. The book, written by the internationally bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author of One Day, is an uplifting love story about second chances. It revolves around the idea I learned from grief: sometimes, one must get lost to find their way. The main character, Michael, struggles to cope with the aftermath of his wife’s departure.

He seeks comfort in solitary walks across the English countryside and becomes increasingly reclusive, trying to escape the emptiness of his home.

Meanwhile, Marnie is feeling stuck. She isolates herself in her London flat, avoiding old friends and reminders of her selfish ex-husband. She spends her time with books, battling the feeling that life is passing her by.

A mutual friend and some unpredictable weather bring Michael and Marnie together on a ten-day hike, which both are not thrilled about. However, they find exactly what they’ve been searching for during the journey.

As they stand at the threshold of a promising future, Michael and Marnie’s journey becomes a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

By bestselling author David Nicholls, “You Are Here” is a hilarious, hopeful, and heartwarming love story. It is a bittersweet and hopeful tale of first encounters, second chances, and finding the way home.

Read: May 2024

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Worry: A Novel

by Alexandra Tanner

Today, I began reading Alexandra Tanner‘s debut novel, Worry: A Novel. The New Yorker praised it as “dryly witty,” The New York Times Book Review called it “fabulously revealing.” The story follows two siblings-turned-roommates who try to navigate an absurd world on the verge of calamity. It explores existentialism and sisterhood in a Seinfeldian style.

In March 2019, Jules Gold, a 28-year-old woman, felt anxious, frustrated with her art, and addicted to the internet. She lives alone in the apartment she used to share with her ex-fiancé. Her younger sister Poppy unexpectedly comes to stay with her indefinitely. Poppy, who attempted suicide a year and a half ago, is looking for work and purpose in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Jules spends her days scrolling through the feeds of Mormon mommy bloggers and waiting for something to happen in her life.

Poppy’s hives, which she has had since childhood, flare up again. Jules has health problems with her uterus. Poppy adopts a poorly behaved-rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar. Poppy’s mother, who recently became a devout Messianic Jew, starts believing in the same deep-state conspiracy theories as Jules’ online mommies. Jules half-heartedly tries to find the source of her ennui and cruelly blames Poppy for not being a good enough friend, writer, or sister. As the year progresses and a new decade approaches, a disastrous trip back to Florida forces Jules and Poppy to question their futures and whether they want to spend them together or apart.

Worry is a darkly funny and deadpan portrayal of two sisters struggling through anxiety and uncertainty in America. A bold new voice in contemporary fiction writes it.

Read: January 2022

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Man’s Search for Meaning

by Viktor E. Frankl

I remember reading portions of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl at different times, but I never finished the book. However, recently, eight and a half months after the passing of Jan, the book came up for discussion in one of my groups. Frankl’s theory of logotherapy, which derives from the Greek word for “meaning,” centers around the idea that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud believed, but rather the search for what gives life meaning. I now have a framework for my life without Jan.

For those like me who are widows, Frankl understands suffering,

In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

Jan and I lived meaningful lives. My challenge now is to continue to find meaning in my life without Jan.

As Frankl writes,

Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.

The love Jan and I shared was one of my primary sources of meaning. In addition, I stopped working full-time at the end of 2018 and struggled to replace the purpose I had gained from repairing the world. After Jan died, I suffered the “provisional existence of an unknown limit.” Frankl experienced that when he was in the concentration camps.

I have replaced the loss of meaning and purpose with a series of activities:

Planning to Celebrate Jan Day on her birthday this year;
Writing my random thoughts on Jan, love, grief, life, and all things considered;
Reading more than ever, including my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challange; and
Walking more than I probably should.

I am also beginning to serve on the board of a few non-profits. It is time to transition from hands-on work to providing leadership differently.

Will this be enough to give my life meaning?

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

I must continue focusing on my search for meaning, as life will change over time.

My grief journey has taught me that love never dies,

For the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

My path forward is to keep Jan’s love alive and continue to share it with others.

I recommend this book without reservation.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Never Forget Our People Were Always Free

Read: March 2024

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Never Forget Our People Were Always Free

by Ben Jealous

Today, I started reading “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing” by Ben Jealous, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club. The book highlights how the path to healing America’s broken heart begins with each of us having the courage to heal ourselves. According to Mr. Jealous, it would be transformative if every American treated each other as cousins.

Ben Jealous and Me

Ben Jealous is the son of parents who had to leave Maryland because their cross-racial marriage was illegal.

I briefly met Ben Jealous last May when I went to Washington with the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism‘s Day of Action. When I saw Mr. Jealous speaking at Temple Emanu-El in neighboring Westfield, I immediately signed up to attend in person. He is an inspiration as an advocate for the environment, civil rights, and the healing of America’s broken heart.

His lively, courageous, and empathetic storytelling calls on every American to look past deeply cut divisions and recognize that we are all in the same boat now. Along the way, Jealous grapples with hidden American mysteries, including:

Why do white men die from suicide more often than black men die from murder?
How did racial profiling kill an American president?
What happens when a Ku Klux Klansman wrestles with what Jesus said?
How did Dave Chappelle know the DC Snipers were Black?
Why shouldn’t the civil rights movement give up on rednecks?
When is what we have collectively forgotten about race more important than what we know?
What do the most indecipherable things our elders say tell us about ourselves?

The book Never Forget Our People Were Always Free is told through parables. It features intimate glimpses of political and faith leaders such as Jack Kemp, Stacey Abrams, and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The book also highlights unlikely heroes such as a retired constable, a female pirate from Madagascar, a long-lost Irishman, a death row inmate, and a man with a Confederate flag over his heart.

Never Forget Our People Were Always Free offers readers hope that America’s oldest wounds can heal and her oldest divisions can be overcome.

Although I have only read a handful of pages of the book, I highly recommend it!

Read: October 2019

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The Bully Pulpit

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a history of the first decade of the Progressive era told by focusing on the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Although I had read many books about Theodore Roosevelt, I had limited knowledge about Taft until I read this book. Reading about their friendship and its eventual collapse helped me to understand both of these presidents and the times in which they lived in a way I had not understood previously.

The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine—Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S. S. McClure.

Goodwin’s narrative is founded upon a wealth of primary materials. The correspondence of more than four hundred letters between Roosevelt and Taft begins in their early thirties and ends only months before Roosevelt’s death. Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft kept diaries. The muckrakers wrote hundreds of letters to one another, kept journals, and wrote their memoirs. The letters of Captain Archie Butt, who served as a personal aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, provide an intimate view of both men.

I recommend this book without reservations.

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Read: July 2024

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Whale Fall: A Novel

by Elizabeth O'Connor

I have started reading “Whale Fall: A Novel” by Elizabeth O’Connor. With its unique blend of loss, isolation, folklore, and the journey of self-discovery, this debut novel offers a compelling narrative set in 1938 on a remote Welsh island. The story is catalyzed by the arrival of a dead whale, a powerful symbol that sets the stage for the characters’ journeys.

The story revolves around Manod, a young woman who has spent her entire life on the island. Despite their island home’s harsh yet stunning surroundings, Manod yearns to explore life beyond it, a desire that will resonate with many readers.

As two English ethnographers arrive to study the island’s culture, Manod sees it as a potential escape from her community. However, her growing involvement with them triggers a profound internal conflict. She grapples with the dilemma of pursuing her desires or remaining loyal to her community. This struggle resonates with the universal human experience, making it a compelling read for many.

‘Whale Fall‘ vividly portrays the tensions that surface when one person’s aspirations threaten the unity of a community. O’Connor’s narrative skillfully depicts the community and Manod on the brink, forced to confront a world that seems to infringe upon them. This evokes a sense of admiration for O’Connor’s storytelling prowess, making it a must-read for literary fiction enthusiasts.

New Book: Aftermirth

Aftermirth

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