Year: 2018

Fatherly.com – 9 New Books Every Guy Should Read to Be Better and Smarter

From Fatherly.com reviews: “When his wife, Joy, died in 2013, author and artist Jonathan Santlofer struggled to readjust and re-enter the land of the living. The notebook, this year’s The Year of Magical Thinking, is a chronicle of this long journey back. It’s beautiful and, naturally, heartbreaking; unexpectedly funny and brutally honest. Death, which will come for us all, is here stared squarely at. It makes for an uncomfortable but unforgettable encounter. Out: July 10th.” –Fatherly.com Read more here…

92Y – Jonathan Santlofer in Conversation with Joyce Carol Oates

Explore the power of love, the pain of loss and the experience of moving forward with writer Joyce Carol Oates and writer and artist Jonathan Santlofer, as they discuss their work and the art of the memoir. After losing his wife, tragically and unexpectedly, Santlofer embarked on a journey of grief and self-discovery that he chronicles in his poignant new book, The Widower’s Notebook. Join him and celebrated author Joyce Carol Oates, who wrote her own memoir, A Widow’s Story, when they sit down for a heartfelt, inspiring conversation. “It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind,” says Oates of Santlofer’s book. Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham has called The Widower’s Notebook “A true tragic beauty.” Come learn how we can all run uphill in life’s most difficult moments. Click here for more info

The Art of The Widower’s Notebook

After my wife, Joy’s, sudden death I hid all of the photographs – it was too painful for me to have them around, particularly to come upon them unexpectedly. I needed to be prepared, in control, and drawing provided that. I started drawing a few weeks after Joy’s death. It was a way to stay close but have distance at the same time. I made lots of drawings, not all of them in the book (my publisher and I chose about a dozen for inclusion), and not all of them are here. Some were very quick sketches, others very complete in my typical trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye) style where I have drawn in tape and tears to make the drawings look “real.” There is a chapter in the book about drawing, how I started, and how it helped me move forward.

Praise for The Widower’s Notebook

“The Widower’s Notebook is a searing rendition of the complex relationship between men and grief—an intense despair that is too often starved for words. This chronicle of devastation is itself devastating, a deeply powerful and unflinchingly honest report of how painfully and strangely life continues in the wake of a sudden, tragic death.” -Andrew Solomon, bestselling author of Far From the Tree “The Widower’s Notebook, Jonathan Santlofer’s searingly truthful chronicle of mortality, is, among its wonders, a book about the preciousness of life and love, rendered all the more heart-wrenching, and all the more vital, by a loss almost beyond imagining. It’s a true tragic beauty.” -Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer prize winner and multi-award winning author of The Hours “Deeply moving . . . beautifully written . . . It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind.” —Joyce Carol Oates, National Book Award winning author “Wrenching, heartbreaking, intense and emotional—but valuable, too: … Read more

The Library Journal Reviews The Widower’s Notebook

    “Nero Award winner whose debut novel, The Death Artist, was an international best seller and an artist whose works grace major collections (e.g., the Metropolitan Museum of Art), Santlofer writes about the shock of his wife’s sudden, unexpected death and his inability to admit his pain to anyone, including himself.” –The Library Journal Read more here…

Brooklyn Eagle Interview – Jonathan Santlofer ‘It Occurs to Me That I am America’

Santlofer grew up wanting to be an artist, went to art school, undergrad and graduate, and spent the first half of his adult life as a fairly successful painter. When a gallery fire destroyed nearly ten years of his artwork, he became a writer. His first novel, “The Death Artist,” about a serial killer in the New York art world, was an international bestseller. Since then, he has written several novels. He has also edited and contributed to many anthologies and has even illustrated a few. His memoir, “The Widower’s Notebook,” will be published by Penguin Books in July 2018, and he is at work on a new novel. Santlofer has lived in many places but always comes back to New York City, one of the most culturally and racially diverse cities in the world. He currently teaches at Pratt in Brooklyn. If you buy only one book in 2018 it should be “It Occurs … Read more

Joyce Carol Oates and Jonathan Santlofer at the San Francisco Public Library

Jonathan Santlofer and Joyce Carol Oates in conversation at the San Francisco Public Library celebrating the new anthology “It Occurs to Me That I Am America,” featuring the work of 35 celebrated authors, is published in support of the American Civil Liberties Union on the one year anniversary of the inauguration of President Trump and the Women’s March on Washington.