A review by theseventhl
A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates

5.0

I make a habit of not reading memoirs, especially of 'famous' people - I find them rather personal, too personal, and takes such a deep look into someone who I've never met that it makes me uncomfortable as a reader - but since Joyce Carol Oates is my writing heroine, I felt compelled to pick up her memoir of life after the death of her husband, Raymond Smith. I am glad I did, or as glad as anyone can to read such a story of grief and life after death. In her usual vivid prose, Oates pulls us into the world of the widow, a world marked by absence and the burden of living on after one's significant other has passed away. Oates does not try to romanticize her experiences or comfort the reader with pulled punches; this is a work marked with emotion from start to finish without any pretense about what it is about - death, dying, loss, grief, and a culture that would rather sweep it all under the rug than look these undeniable truths in the eye. There are memoirs are then there is A Widow's Story. For anyone who has ever lost a loved one and known what it is like to live a second life after death, this is for you.