The Widower’s Notebook

Salon – A Widower’s Perspective on Loss and Mourning

Salon talks to “The Widower’s Handbook” author Jonathan Santlofer about what losing someone is really like Grief and trauma are rarely the dramatic, sliding-down-a-wall-in-tears experiences you see in movies. Sure, sometimes there are big, emotional outbursts. But often it’s a dull but persistent numbness. Or it’s intense and boring at the same — like a very long labor, when you find yourself thinking, I cannot believe how been in this howling agony for this long. Author and artist Jonathan Santlofer learned it firsthand when his wife Joy passed away suddenly a few years ago. In his intimate, insightful and often funny new memoir, “The Widower’s Handbook,” he describes the otherworldly experience of watching the person you love die in your arms and the abrupt transition from one life to another. He also astutely observes the fluid experience of grief, something that does not unfold in an orderly fashion or take place in a strict time … Read more

The Sunday Times of London – In a Time of Grief, Turning to Art

Here’s an essay The Times and The Sunday Times of London, asked me to write about The Widower’s Notebook. Read the original article here. Friday, August 16, 2013 appeared to be a normal day. My wife, Joy, had undergone minor out-patient knee surgery — the routine repairing of a torn tendon — and was resting at home, her leg up, re-reading her notes for Food City, a book she had been writing for several years. What did we talk about? Dinner? Going away for the weekend? Our daughter? An ordinary day. I went out to buy more ice for Joy’s leg and she switched from research to reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Earlier she had complained that her leg felt twitchy, and I thought she looked and felt a bit feverish. She called the doctor’s office and was told not to worry and to come in next week for her post-op appointment. “No one wants … Read more

Joy on Paper: Interview with Jonathan Santlofer

Thanks to Patzi Gil at the Joy on Paper Radio Show.  Very glad to be back discussing my new book in such great company. The word “Joy” has always meant so much to me — and so I feel a special connection to Jonathan Santlofer  because his wife’s name was Joy. Jonathan has been a guest on Joy on Paper several times and it was an honor to have him back on the program to talk about his latest book, The Widower’s Notebook. It is a very heartwarming and lovely tribute to his wife, Joy Santlofer, a wife, a mother and the talented author of Food City. There is healing in remembering and in sharing life’s difficult moments. As always, Jonathan has written a compelling book.  Jonathan is the creator and editor of the powerful anthology  It Occurs to Me That I Am America New Stories and Art, which features original short stories from thirty bestselling and award-winning authors—including Alice Walker, Richard Russo, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, … Read more

Anxiety Diaries Podcast – Jonathan Santlofer on Dealing with Grief, and How to Keep Living

Thanks to Scott Neumyer at The Anxiety Diaries, a weekly podcast about mental health, incredible people, and much more. Please if you have a moment learn more about our discussion about on dealing with grief, and how to keep living. This week’s episode features an in-depth conversation with writer and artist Jonathan Santlofer. We discuss his incredible new bookTHE WIDOWER’S NOTEBOOK, how he deals with the grief of losing his wife so suddenly and unexpectedly, the ways in which grief manifests things like addiction, anxiety, and pain, and we also discuss how to keep on living after such a tragic loss. Jonathan Santlofer is a writer and artist. His debut novel, The Death Artist, was an international bestseller translated into 17 languages, and is currently in development for screen adaptation. His fourth novel, Anatomy of Fear, won the Nero Award for best novel of 2009. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. He is the author of … Read more

Grief. Hope. Loss. Love. Jonathan Santlofer Talks About The Widower’s Notebook

What was the “why now” moment for you to write this brave and moving book? Thank you for those kind words. I’m not sure there was one specific moment I could point to. For almost two years after my wife’s death I kept notebooks where I documented my days and nights, my interactions with friends and associates, even strangers. The notebooks were for me alone, a way to see clearly at a time when I could not. When I was invited to the arts colony, Yaddo, I thought I would work on a novel I’d started before my wife’s death, but got there and found I was still unable to concentrate on fiction and began transcribing my notebooks. I still didn’t think of it as a book, at least not one I would put into the world. What changed was allowing a few friends to read parts of what I’d written, all of whom were … Read more

Entertainment Weekly – July’s Must Reads!

  Need some new reads to throw into your beach tote? There are plenty of hot new books hitting the shelves this month: Here are the 20 you need to know about…. “In this sensitive memoir, a man wades through grief by remembering his marriage in intimate, devastating detail after his wife dies suddenly.” –Entertainment Weekly Read Full Review Here

Albany Times Union Interview

“Jonathan Santlofer’s painfully beautiful new memoir, “The Widower’s Notebook,” fulfills two roles at once. Even as it makes art of his struggle to cope with the loss of his wife, it also reflects the fact that a growing number of mourning American men are publicly sharing the depths of their sorrow. Released on the heels of last month’s TED talk “The Journey Through Loss and Grief,” by Jason B. Rosenthal — husband of Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose 2017 Modern Love essay, “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” went viral shortly before her death from ovarian cancer — Santlofer’s memoir treats his anguish at the 2013 death of his own wife, Joy, and his sense of having been left to mourn without knowing how to articulate his grief.” -Albany Times Union Read Full Interview Here

Book Reporter: The Widower’s Notebook

“THE WIDOWER’S NOTEBOOK is vital reading, a beautiful testament to Joy’s life, and a much-needed window into how one man grapples with the most acute kind of loss. onathan and Joy Santlofer were not a perfect couple by any means. They did their fair share of fighting and annoying one another. But they were content in their lives together, even after a 40-year marriage, and mutually sustained one another’s creative and professional work. They were both solidly middle-aged, with a grown daughter, but always envisioned they’d still have decades left to grow old together. However, that all changed when, in the wake of what should have been a routine, extremely minor surgical procedure, Joy experienced a sudden inability to breathe and died, despite the paramedics’ and emergency room physicians’ best efforts. Jonathan, who had been working in his adjoining studio at the time, initially can’t even process what’s happened, as he alternates between disbelief at … Read more

92Y – Jonathan Santlofer and Joyce Carol Oates in Coversation

Everyone shared touching stories and asked great questions about their own struggles with loss and grief at last nights conversation series at the 92Y.  I was incredibly inspired by the discussions that took place. Many thanks to those who could attend, and in case you missed it here are some pics of the evening’s event.

Fiction Talks – Jonathan Santlofer Interview

In the latest latest episode of Fiction Talks, Jonathan Santlofer, a widely acclaimed author and beloved teacher at The Center, talks to Noreen Tomassi, our executive director, about his new memoir THE WIDOWER’S NOTEBOOK. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY hails the book as “a quiet stunner of a memoir… the book never loses momentum, thanks in large part to his vivid writing. This is a tender, moving, and resonant account of how life continues whether one wants it to or not.”