The death of a beloved spouse after a lifetime of companionship is a life-changing experience. To help understand the reality of bereavement, Jeffrey Berman focuses on five extraordinary American writers—Joan Didion, Sandra Gilbert, Gail Godwin, Kay Redfield Jamison, and Joyce Carol Oates—each of whom has written a memoir of spousal loss. In each chapter, Berman gives an overview of the writer's life and art before widowhood, including her early preoccupation with death, and then discusses the writer's memoir and her life as a widow. He discovers that writing was, for all of these authors, both a solace and a lifeline, enabling them to maintain bonds with their lost loved ones while simultaneously moving on with their lives. These memoirs of widowhood, Berman maintains, reveal not only courage and resilience in the face of loss, but also the critical role of writing and reading in bereavement and recovery.

Guides readers through the emotions and practical concerns of finding love after the death of a partner. Romantic love, in all its permutations, forms one of the most fascinating of human interactions. It also can be one of life’s thorniest challenges, especially in a world where relationships often unfold online and, recently, where a pandemic barred face-to-face contact with people outside one’s immediate household. Among those seeking romance in increasing numbers is a group that stands apart: the women who, slammed by the death of a spouse, bravely pursue new love. Finding Love After Loss: A Relationship Roadmap for Widows goes to the trenches to interview widows who have embarked, nervously but with hope, on this quest. Their frank and revealing interviews, along with wisdom from relationship experts, provide guidance to other women trying to navigate the relationship scene when their last date might have been decades ago. Where do widows find new partners? How much should they share in their online profile? What do they tell their friends and family? What about getting naked for the first time with a new man? Who pays when the bill appears at a restaurant? More than any time in U.S. history, the country’s widows are seeking another chance at romance. The sheer number of widows—11 million, with an average age in the fifties—makes them a formidable force. They are living longer and have broader views on sex and money. Yet it is difficult for them to find their footing. Many of them have been away from the courtship arena for decades. They may make their return to dating with children and in-laws in tow. They are confused by the new rules and unclear on the expectations but convinced that they are capable of loving again. This book, written by a widow and a co-author who dated a widower, details just how powerful, sometimes daunting, and exhilarating the journey to new love can be. It also unveils the extraordinary ways that widows are reshaping the romance landscape: by tossing traditional marriage vows by the roadside, by skipping marriage entirely, or even by committing to a new partner but living apart. This isn’t your grandmother’s widowhood scene, not by a long shot. Finding Love After Loss examines the crazy, sad, and even zany contributions that people left behind by the death of a partner bring to new relationships. At the same time, it reveals both the amazing resilience of women who have lived through great loss and the irresistible pull of human connection.

Explores how memoirs of widowhood can help us understand the reality of bereavement and the critical role of writing and reading in recovery. The death of a beloved spouse after a lifetime of companionship is a life-changing experience. To help understand the reality of bereavement, Jeffrey Berman focuses on five extraordinary American writers—Joan Didion, Sandra Gilbert, Gail Godwin, Kay Redfield Jamison, and Joyce Carol Oates—each of whom has written a memoir of spousal loss. In each chapter, Berman gives an overview of the writer’s life and art before widowhood, including her early preoccupation with death, and then discusses the writer’s memoir and her life as a widow. He discovers that writing was, for all of these authors, both a solace and a lifeline, enabling them to maintain bonds with their lost loved ones while simultaneously moving on with their lives. These memoirs of widowhood, Berman maintains, reveal not only courage and resilience in the face of loss, but also the critical role of writing and reading in bereavement and recovery. “Writing Widowhood is a stunning achievement that combines biography, literary history, and theoretical and philosophical exploration into the nature of grief as well as mental illness—all seamlessly executed. Berman elegantly and lucidly conveys a range of theories and perspectives to suit both academic and general readers. Berman never compromises complexity while remaining accessible and straightforward throughout.” — Virginia L. Blum, author of Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery “Writing Widowhood contributes to the field of autobiography/biography, and particularly to women’s writing within that generic field, by discussing five memoirs which Berman categorizes as the ‘widow memoir.’ No other critic that I know has shaped commentaries into a newly defined genre. Berman’s book, thus, makes an important contribution to the overall field.” — Linda Wagner-Martin, author of Telling Women’s Lives: The New Biography

My husband died, my life collapsed.

Presents, in graphic novel format, the story of Alissa Torres, whose husband was killed in the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and her legal and psychological battles over his death.

Written with unexpected humor and great warmth, The Widower's Notebook is a portrait of a marriage, an account of the complexities of finding oneself single again after losing your spouse, and a story of the enduring power of familial love. "This is deeply moving ... beautifully written and modulated, with a dollop of droll, black humor. It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind."--Joyce Carol Oates On a summer day in New York Jonathan Santlofer discovers his wife, Joy, gasping for breath on their living room couch. After a frenzied 911 call, an ambulance race across Manhattan, and hours pacing in a hospital waiting room, a doctor finally delivers the fateful news. Consumed by grief, Jonathan desperately tries to pursue life as he always had--writing, social engagements, and working on his art--but finds it nearly impossible to admit his deep feelings of loss to anyone, not even his to beloved daughter, Doria, or to himself. As Jonathan grieves and heals, he tries to unravel what happened to Joy, a journey that will take him nearly two years.

Winner, ICQI 2022 Outstanding Qualitative Book Award In Writing the Self in Bereavement: A Story of Love, Spousal Loss, and Resilience, Reinekke Lengelle uses her abilities as a researcher, poet, and professor of therapeutic writing to tell a heartfelt and fearless story about her grief after the death of her spouse and the year and a half following his diagnosis, illness, and passing. This book powerfully demonstrates that writing can be a companion in bereavement. It uses and explains the latest research on coming to terms with spousal loss without being prescriptive. Integrated with this contemporary research are stories, poetry, and reflections on writing as a therapeutic process. The author unflinchingly explores a number of themes that are underrepresented in existing resources: how one deals with anger associated with loss, what a healthy response might be to unfinished business with the deceased, continuing conversations with the beloved (even for agnostics and atheists), ongoing sexual desire, and secondary losses. As a rare book where an author successfully combines a personal story, heart-rending poetry, up-to-date research on grief, and an evocative exploration of taboo topics in the context of widowhood, Writing the Self in Bereavement is uniquely valuable for those grieving a spouse or other loved one, those supporting others in bereavement, and those interested in the healing power of poetry and life writing. Researchers on death and dying, grief counsellors, and autoethnographers will also benefit from reading this resonant resource on love and loss.