Month: July 2018

The Washington Post – Do men and women experience grief differently?

“Five years ago, Jonathan Santlofer’s wife, Joy, died unexpectedly following a routine outpatient procedure. In the days and months following her death, Santlofer kept a “widower’s notebook” — a collection of thoughts and drawings he polished and bound into a memoir of the same title. Reading Santlofer’s “The Widower’s Notebook” hit fairly close to home for me. I am also a widower. Heck, I even kept a “widower’s notebook” of my own for a while. “The Widower’s Notebook,” by Jonathan Santlofer (Penguin) Santlofer’s book is an affecting read and not entirely heavy, despite the subject matter. My wife, who died of cancer at 39, wrote a memoir, “The Bright Hour” about her own experiences with mortality, so I recognize the challenges of the dying-death-grieving genre. It is hard to present an untimely death without making it maudlin, or to convey the humor and absurdity of everyday life that persists even amid terminal illness and loss.” … Read more

Lit Hub Bookmarks: The Best Reviewed Books of the Week

“Santlofer’s book is an affecting read and not entirely heavy, despite the subject matter … Santlofer’s book, which shines most brightly when it focuses on his grief for his wife, is not a pedagogical tool and does not advance our understanding of grief in an appreciable way. It is the testimony of Jonathan Santlofer about the loss of his beloved wife … Viewed in that more limited lens, the book has perhaps less literary or cultural merit, but it still offers a moving portrait of one widower with a notebook.” The Washington Post John Duberstein Read More Here

Medium.com – The First Day of the Rest of My Life as a Widower

Medium.com has featured an excerpt of The Widower’s Notebook as a featured member story. The First Day of the Rest of My Life as a Widower. My wife’s mysterious death, and what came next. I start with the part where I am paralyzed, back pressed hard against the living room wall, shrinking into it but watching as if through a lens zooming in and out of the action, near then far, all of it taking place no more than five, six feet in front of me, firemen pushing the coffee table aside, books toppling, paramedics rolling my wife onto the floor, one tearing open her blouse and searching for a heartbeat, another pressing her chest up and down as a second team races in and a woman takes over, flips open a black bag and inserts a tube down my wife’s throat, everything happening in hyperspeed, while I stare at my wife’s face gone pale … Read more

Good Grief with Cheryl Jones – Podcast Interview with Jonathan Santlofer

On a day like any other, Jonathan Santlofer was suddenly dropped into the chaos of intense grief when his wife of 40 years suddenly died. His losses before this did not prepare him for his upended life. It did not prepare him for the insensitive and alienating things people said to him when he was too vulnerable to respond. It did not prepare him for the internal conflict of whether and how much to share about his intense mourning. He also had the sense that his inability to share his feelings and ask for help were deeply affected by the expectations he felt because he is a man. How did gender affect people’s expectations of what would happen next? How much of that was a conflict within his own heart? He found an anchor in writing down what he was experiencing. In his notebooks he was able to say it all, and to hear himself. … Read more

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