In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss

Description

In January 2020, Amy Bloom travelled with her husband Brian to Switzerland, where he was helped by Dignitas to end his life while Amy sat with him and held his hand. Brian was terminally ill and for the last year of his life Amy had struggled to find a way to support his wish to take control of his death, to not submerge 'into the darkness of an expiring existence'. Written with piercing insight and wit, In Love is Bloom's intimate, authentic and startling account of losing Brian, first slowly to the disease of Alzheimer's, and then on becoming a widow. It charts the anxiety and pain of the process that led them to Dignitas, while never avoiding the complex ethical problems that are raised by assisted death. A poignant love letter to Bloom's husband and a passionate outpouring of grief, In Love reaffirms the power and value of human relationships.

Amy Bloom is the author of four novels, White Houses (Granta, 2017), Lucky Us (Granta, 2014), Away (Granta, 2007), and Love Invents Us; three collections of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Granta, 2010), Come to Me, and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, all also published in one volume as Rowing to Eden (Granta, 2015); and a collection of essays, Normal. She is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University.

Reading this book is, purely and simply, a transcendent experience. In Love is a thrillingly beautiful, laser-eyed book about love, life, mortality and, most remarkably, about the ways in which no one of the three can be separated from the others. Prepare yourself to be heartbroken, expanded, unsettled, and filled with hope. -- Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and A Home at the End of the World I read In Love in one sitting on a long flight and a flight never went by so fast. I am full of admiration for this important memoir. The mastery of this book draws us in, and delivers us, by the last page, changed. -- Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club In Love is a buoyant and entrancing memoir about one of the worst things that can happen to a couple. Bloom's unfiltered glimpse into a working marriage is both a touchingly besotted portrait of her husband and a wrenching account of his gradual retreat from her. Their resolute approach to his death yields up a story pulsing with raw life -- Alison Bechdel This is a beautiful necessary book for anyone who loves their partner deeply and wonders and worries what the end might be like: poignant, kind, funny and ultimately redemptive. One cries a lot, in the best of ways -- Alain de Botton A remarkable book from one of the USA's most consistently brilliant writers. The subject is death, so the end is inevitable; but Bloom's story is full of surprises and some of the most heartbreaking, honest and funniest writing you'll ever read -- Roddy Doyle What a book this is-full of everything that matters. In Love is gripping, moving, and beautifully told. I'm so glad I read it -- Meg Wolitzer A lasting monument to the power of love -- Damian Barr Staggeringly honest * Guardian * [Bloom] can make you laugh and break your heart in the same beat... A sharp observer and an immaculate stylist, Bloom balances a lack of sentimentality with the expression of her love for the man she felt slipping away and then helped to die... a more romantic statement does not exist -- Sarah Ditum * The Times * A lovely, spare, very moving and beautiful book... Wonderful -- Richard Coles [A] courageous howl of a memoir ... It's also consistently funny ... Heartache makes [Bloom] savvy and sarcastic, a tone she pairs with a memorable descriptive shorthand ... This startling book teaches * Observer * Fascinating and moving ... a breath-taking story of dialogue and the search for truth * Irish Times * A remarkably ambitious book that blends art criticism, biography, and memoir... [De Freston's] lyrical prose finds beauty in the dark -- Chloe Ashby * Elephant * Sharply observed, often witty, eminently moving... [Bloom] has written about [her husband] with all the brave-spirited, undaunted love to which the book bears stupendous witness -- Sally Vickers * Guardian * A memoir with a difference, one with an ethical, emotional and philosophical edge on most grief memoirs... Lively, accessible and deeply thoughtful, In Love is a truly important book * Irish Times * Not only riveting, but also practical and funny... [Bloom's] matter-of-fact attention to detail, sharp eye for the absurd and gift for simple, elegant language make her account of her harrowing experiences consistently absorbing... Remarkable -- Wendy Moore * TLS * Evoke[s] the dreamy, almost unreal, nature of the process * Prospect * Moving... She doesn't pull her punches. There is no false rhetoric, no empty sentimentality. She tells it as it was * Jewish Chronicle * Bloom's aching account of loss is brave, tender and ultimately life-affirming... A beautiful account * Daily Mail * In deceptively readable prose that flows like a summer beach read, [Bloom] sheds a warm light on what it means to live a good life and to have a good death * Financial Times *