The Widower’s Notebook

Available Now from Penguin Random House

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 enduring love.

“Deeply moving . . . beautifully written . . . It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind.”
—Joyce Carol Oates

“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

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Praise for The Widower's Notebook

“…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.”
–Publisher’s Weekly Best Books

"His words carry with them the solemnity of death, love, and longing and a tinge of anger as he wrestles with the facts and struggles to determine what went wrong on that fateful day. Santlofer offers a man’s perspective on emotional topics, of feeling inadequate on multiple levels, of wanting to have been a better husband and his desire to be a better father to their only daughter."
-Kirkus Reviews

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.

The first drawing I made after Joy’s death is based on an author photo she had taken by Annie Powers, which she intended to use for her book, Food City, and which we did use, when her book was posthumously published. Dorie thought Joy looked too stern in the actual photo and I tried to soften that in the drawing.

This was drawn from a tiny, 2×3” black and white photo. I love the romance of this drawing, the way we look at each other, our 70’s hair!

I found a small black & white photo of me with my 2 best friends in college, at Boston University, John Baldoni (right) and Al Dressler (center). John is with his girlfriend, Claudia DeMonte who arranged the blind date on which Joy and I met. John and Al, two great guys, smartasses, as you can see, both giving the finger here. That’s Joy and me on the left, not a flattering moment for either of us; me, always with a cigarette, Joy braless (as most young women were at the time). I remember buying the wire-frame glasses to look like John Lennon. I would guess this is my Sophomore year l at BU.

This had to be on the first trip Joy and I took to Paris, sometime in the 1970s. The drawing is based on a small, faded color photo and I don’t recall who took it.

This drawing is based on a contact sheet image taken by the artist/photographer, Harry Roseman, who has been a long-time friend. I met his artist wife (to-be), Catherine Murphy, at Skowhegan School of painting & Sculpture – the first art colony I ever went to between my sophomore and Junior year in art school. This image is part of Harry’s “Visitors” series, probably from the early ‘80s. The cat is theirs, and Cathy made a painting of herself with the cat: Self-portrait with Pansy.”

I must have taken the photo on which I based this drawing, which was in Florida. Joy’s mother, Rae Scott Katzman is on the left, one of truly nicest people I’ve ever known and equally intelligent; Joy and infant Dorie in the center; on the right, is Joy’s older sister, Kathy Katzman Rolland, who, like her mother, is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know, and equally smart. As I liked to say to Joy to annoy her: “I should have married the nice sister!”

A photographer friend took our wedding pictures. He set us up very formally to look old fashioned, which is belied by Joy’s mini-wedding dress (which she designed and my father’s dress company made), and my fitted Edwardian “mod” suit. I cut my usually long hair for the wedding, and Joy had daisies entwined in hers.

I pieced this drawing together from different small photos but I’m pretty sure they were all taken at the dinner party we had in our loft for our last wedding anniversary. Joy was moving into an older, very beautiful phase of her life.

Joy was a 8 months pregnant here, and 35 years old. Her hospital chart had the initials AMA on it. When I asked the doctor what it stood for she said, “Advanced Maternal Age!”

This drawing almost made it into the memoir but was replaced by the drawing of Joy with newborn Dorie. I based it on a photo taken in my parent’s LI backyard. I remember the day in an almost cinematic way.

This is the drawing we used in the book rather than the one above. It was taken from a small blurry color photo I’d taken just minutes after Dorie was born.

This drawing was made from one of the first photos I ever took of Joy, before we were married. I remember exactly where we were, in her parent’s Hackensack home and it was possibly the 1st time I met her parents, both of whom I liked a lot. Joy used to kid that her stock went up with her parents when she brought me home because they liked me so much! Joy was about twenty-one at the time of this photo though she looks 16.

I’m not sure why I didn’t finish this drawing because I like it. I became somewhat obsessed with my father’s death while I wrote the book, which was only a year or two after this picture. My father, a tough guy, had a real soft spot for his only granddaughter.

Really sorry I did not finish this drawing because I think it would have been good and I’m not satisfied with almost any of the drawings I made of Dorie. Like her mother, Dorie is a total cat freak.

I think this sketch of Dorie looks more like her than the more “finished” drawings of her in the book.

I made this in the style of my usual drawings, with trompe l’oeil tape and shadows, putting together the 3 images of us each as a kind of scrapbook page.

This is a rougher version than the drawing of Joy and I used in the book (page —). I decided to make a somewhat refined version and used a different image of Joy.
(Though looking at the 2 versions now I think I like the rougher version which we did not use.)

What I love about this drawing is that, in life, I hardly noticed how much Dorie and Joy looked alike, but here it’s obvious.

Joy’s cat who disliked me for 15 years, then bonded with me so strongly after Joy’s death that we were inseparable.

Joy took the picture this is based on at Dorie’s college graduation. I don’t love the drawing because it doesn’t really look like Dorie but I had it on my desk for years, a small color photo and wanted to translate it. I drew it twice, never quite getting what I wanted.

more images here

Events and Appearances

Event	Time	Place	Link
Jonathan Santlofer, Dani Shapiro and Neal Thompson	Thursday May 16, 2019 6:30 pm	Yaddo Variations - Evening of Memoir New York, NY	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Joyce Carol Oates	Saturday March 23, 2019 6:30 pm	Montclair Literary Festival The Sanctuary at First Congregational Church, Montclair, NJ	more info
Jonathan Santlofer Reading / Q&A / Signing	Monday December 10, 2018 6:30 pm	BAYPORT, BLUEPOINT LIBRARY 203 Bluepoint Ave. Bluepoint, NY	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Book Reporter's Carol Fitzgerald	Tuesday, November 13, 2018 7:30 pm	WORDS BOOKSTORE 179 Maplewood Ave. Maplewood, NJ	more info
Writers Speak Southhampton	Wednesday November 7, 2018 7:00 pm	STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON Chancellor Hall, Southhampton, NY	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Rachel Shteir	Thursday October 18, 2018 6:30 to 8:30pm	The American Museum of Writers Readers Hall, 180 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60601	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Beverly Donofrio	Sunday September 30, 2018 5:00pm	NORTHSHIRE BOOKSTORE 424 Broadway Saratoga Springs, NY 12866	more info
Albany Book Festival	Saturday September 29, 2018 1:00 pm	University at Albany - SUNY 1400 Washington Avenue Albany, NY 12222	more info
"Writing the Personal" with Jonathan Santlofer, Neal Thompson and Wendy C. Ortiz	Wednesday September 26, 2018 7:00 pm	HUGO HOUSE 1021 Columbia St. Seattle, WA 98104	more info
Jonathan Santlofer Reading / Q&A / Signing	Monday September 24, 2018 7:00 pm	CHANGING HANDS BOOKSTORE 300 West Camelback Road Phoenix, AZ 85013	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Susan Steinberg and poet Forrest Gander	Thursday September 20, 2018 7:00 pm	CITY LIGHTS BOOKSELLERS 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133	more info
Brooklyn Book Festival "Writing After Loss" Jonathan Santlofer Megan O'Rouke and Joyce Carol Oates	Sunday September 16, 2018 12:00 pm	BROOKLYN BOOK FEST Borough Hall Courtroom, 209 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, NY	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Richard Russo	Wednesday August 22, 2018 7:00 pm	PRINT: A BOOKSTORE 273 Congress St, Portland, ME 04101	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Joyce Carol Oates	Sunday August 5, 2018 Noon	BOOK HAMPTON 41 Main St, East Hampton, NY 11937	more info
Jonathan Santlofer Reading / Q&A / Signing	Wednesday July 25, 2018 6:00 pm	MALAPROPS 55 Haywood St, Asheville, NC 28801	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Joan Wickersham	Monday July 23, 2018 7:00 pm	HARVARD BOOKSTORE 1256 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with radio host Martha Frankel	Saturday July 21, 2018 4:00 pm	The Golden Notebook Bookstore 29 Tinker St, Woodstock, NY 12498	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Sarah Weinman	Wednesday July 18, 2018 7:00 pm	MCNALLY JACKSON 52 Prince St, New York, NY 10012	more info
Jonathan Santlofer in conversation with Joyce Carol Oates	Wednesday July 11, 2018 7:00 pm	92ND STREET Y 1395 Lexington Avenue@92nd St. New York, NY 10128	more info

more here

Jonathan Santlofer: Author and Artist