October 9, 2023
This shattering memoir from novelist Blake (Alice Knott) recounts his relationship with poet and memoirist Molly Brodak, who died by suicide in 2020, when she was 39. Painting the couple’s courtship and marriage as both turbulent and tender, Butler opens the account after Brodak’s death, then returns to their early meetings and catalogs their relationship milestones. He discusses how Brodak’s bipolar disorder and other personality disorders—which were likely exacerbated by her dysfunctional childhood with her father, who compulsively lied and robbed banks—informed nearly every aspect of her life, before sharing a wrenching discovery he made after her death. While reading Brodak’s journals, Butler learned that she’d carried on several affairs over the course of their relationship, and he spends much of the rest of the narrative struggling to make sense of their love, her illnesses, this infidelity, and other “white lies” he’d noticed during their time together. The tone is never vengeful or petty—Butler gracefully and intelligently sifts through the life he built with his late wife, relating their difficult tale in beautiful prose that convincingly conjures their mutual love. The result is a brutal yet beautiful look at the ravages of mental illness and the complexities of grief. Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency.
October 1, 2023
A husband's anguished, complex response to his wife's suicide and the revelations that followed. "Molly Brodak, Poet and Memoirist of Her Father's Crimes, Dies at 39," read the headline of her New York Times obituary. Her problematic father's appearance at this final juncture is ruefully noted by her husband, Butler, author of Alice Knott, There Is No Year, and other novels. He begins with a gripping account of the day he came home and found an envelope taped to the door containing a suicide note and instructions for finding his wife's body. Knowing of her lifelong issues with depression, he was nonetheless blindsided. They had just had a nice evening and been to a museum two days earlier; a picture of her waiting for him in a gallery is one of the book's lovely color photographs. However, while going through her journals and phone records in the days after her death, Butler learned of Molly's infidelity with many partners, including her college students, and of a long-term liaison ongoing at the time of her death. He initially thought he would not include this information, but he decided to tell all. This will be too much for some readers, though his attempt to understand is relatable and moving: "A cycle of lying and hiding had likely kept her alive at times, a habit modeled on her father that she'd never learned to break." This theme takes its place beside many others in Butler's sprawling, philosophical interior monologue, which includes quotes from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche; spiritualist interludes, in which he communicates with demons and his dead wife; and testimony to the wonderful postmortem support of their friends. Not for everyone, but it could mean the world to those facing similar shocks and losses.
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