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Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
Winner of the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
A Smithsonian Best Science Book of 2022 • A Prospect Magazine Top Memoir of 2022 • A KCRW Life Examined Best Book of 2022
"Keen observer [and] deft writer" (David Quammen) Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own.
When her twenty-five-year marriage suddenly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. But when she starts feeling physically sick, losing weight and sleep, she sets out in pursuit of rational explanation. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts so much―and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong.
Soon Williams finds herself on a surprising path that leads her from neurogenomic research laboratories to trying MDMA in a Portland therapist's living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that restore her. She tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks while looking at pictures of her ex, and discovers that our immune cells listen to loneliness. Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she seeks out new relationships and ventures into the wilderness in search of an extraordinary antidote: awe.
With warmth, daring, wit, and candor, Williams offers a gripping account of grief and healing. Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.
A Smithsonian Best Science Book of 2022 • A Prospect Magazine Top Memoir of 2022 • A KCRW Life Examined Best Book of 2022
"Keen observer [and] deft writer" (David Quammen) Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own.
When her twenty-five-year marriage suddenly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. But when she starts feeling physically sick, losing weight and sleep, she sets out in pursuit of rational explanation. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts so much―and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong.
Soon Williams finds herself on a surprising path that leads her from neurogenomic research laboratories to trying MDMA in a Portland therapist's living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that restore her. She tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks while looking at pictures of her ex, and discovers that our immune cells listen to loneliness. Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she seeks out new relationships and ventures into the wilderness in search of an extraordinary antidote: awe.
With warmth, daring, wit, and candor, Williams offers a gripping account of grief and healing. Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.
Editorial Reviews
"A masterful blend of investigative reporting and personal narrative, chock-full of fascinating insights, gorgeous nature writing and an ample helping of compassion (some of which Williams deservedly reserves for herself)."
― Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
"This innovative book will have you rooting for Williams to understand her own body's pain―and, by extension, all of ours."
― Zibby Owens, Katie Couric Media
"Fascinating."
― People Magazine
"Edifying and entertaining... [A] fascinating, memorable quest to survive and thrive in an often-heartbreaking world."
― BookPage (starred review)
"This surprisingly frank and funny book is what happens when a formidable science journalist turns her powers of observation and inquiry on her own broken heart."
― Bonnie Tsui, author of Why We Swim
"What a powerful book. Williams captures the heartache of divorce and the crooked road back to living. Colorful, imaginative and poignant―Heartbreak tells a gripping story of courage, sex, and adventure packed with all the newest hard science on romance and attachment. I've studied love for over 40 years and I was taking notes. It's a magnificent, wise, and remarkable read!"
― Helen Fisher, author of The Anatomy of Love
"Heartbreak by Florence Williams is a graceful account of losing a marriage and finding another way of being. With vulnerability and veracity, Williams seeks various modes of understanding the physicality of loss. Whoever has felt the blistering heat of a broken heart will thank Florence Williams for a clear moving river of discoveries"
― Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion
"I tore through this book, unable to do anything else. Even sleep. Florence Williams has taken the most common form of psychic pain––heartbreak, her heartbreak––and transformed it into a meditative masterwork on what it means to live a good life, with biological and genetic markers and dozens of scientific studies to back up her claims. Awe: remember this word. You will ...
― Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
"This innovative book will have you rooting for Williams to understand her own body's pain―and, by extension, all of ours."
― Zibby Owens, Katie Couric Media
"Fascinating."
― People Magazine
"Edifying and entertaining... [A] fascinating, memorable quest to survive and thrive in an often-heartbreaking world."
― BookPage (starred review)
"This surprisingly frank and funny book is what happens when a formidable science journalist turns her powers of observation and inquiry on her own broken heart."
― Bonnie Tsui, author of Why We Swim
"What a powerful book. Williams captures the heartache of divorce and the crooked road back to living. Colorful, imaginative and poignant―Heartbreak tells a gripping story of courage, sex, and adventure packed with all the newest hard science on romance and attachment. I've studied love for over 40 years and I was taking notes. It's a magnificent, wise, and remarkable read!"
― Helen Fisher, author of The Anatomy of Love
"Heartbreak by Florence Williams is a graceful account of losing a marriage and finding another way of being. With vulnerability and veracity, Williams seeks various modes of understanding the physicality of loss. Whoever has felt the blistering heat of a broken heart will thank Florence Williams for a clear moving river of discoveries"
― Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion
"I tore through this book, unable to do anything else. Even sleep. Florence Williams has taken the most common form of psychic pain––heartbreak, her heartbreak––and transformed it into a meditative masterwork on what it means to live a good life, with biological and genetic markers and dozens of scientific studies to back up her claims. Awe: remember this word. You will ...
Readers Top Reviews
GraceCC Coach MikeRo
I learned more about myself and the roots of sadness from reading this book than decades of experience with therapists, and in recent years with trauma specialists. It's made clear a path, not discussed in traditional therapy, to being able to recover from a broken heart. Whether new to trying therapies or different modalities for healing the heart, or have had unfulfilling therapy results, this book gives new perspective/hope and is highly recommended reading.
sherry cormier
As a bereavement trauma specialist and grief author, and a fan of Ms. Williams The Nature Fix book, I couldn't wait to read my copy of Heartbreak. It did not disappoint! The kind of heartbreak that the author discusses in this book, both personally and scientifically, is related to and yet distinct from grief. They overlap in many significant ways. I was most interested in the information conveyed in Heartbreak about the impact of heartbreak on the body. As great as talk therapy can be, only when we also deal with heartbreak at a physiological level, can healing truly occur. In addition, her personal journey of healing from heartbreak in nature was fascinating and could be so helpful to her readers. I highly recommend Heartbreak as sooner or later, we all experience significant loss in one way or another.
Erica S. Perl
Full disclosure: I know the author personally and I read some passages of this book during the drafting phase. However, when I read the published book, I was completely blown away by it. Florence Williams is such a smart and curious person, and such a brave and honest writer that I feel like I shouldn't have been surprised that she was able to create a book that is equal parts fascinating scientific journey and heart-breakingly honest chronicle of personal loss. It's an ambitious project and one that succeeds on all levels. I also learned that she created an enhanced audiobook that includes interviews with many of the people who appear in the book (both in a professional and personal capacity), so now I am planning to get that and listen to it, even though I've already read the book. I have never done that before, which should give you an idea of how impressed I am with this work. I also loved her previous book, THE NATURE FIX, so if you haven't read that, add it to your stack as well!
Annie
When my husband left me after forty years of marriage for a much younger workplace colleague--he was her supervisor--I was physically devastated for months. I've been an athlete my whole life, I have given talks to audiences of a hundred, I travel regularly alone, but my entire body was filled with shaking and anxiety, things I had never before experienced. I felt as fragile as an eggshell, my ribs seemed to constrict my breathing, I felt constantly physically vulnerable, and any thought about money or my future filled me with terror, which I felt in my body more than my mind. I gradually found through trial and error many of the healing measures Florence Williamson found through her scientific research, but reading her book allowed me to understand more fully why I felt as I did and how I managed to heal, notably a trip that challenged me in many ways, forcing me to confront my fears, reconnect with my capabilities, courage, and curiosity, as did her river trip. I read a bunch of books about betrayal and divorce several years ago when all this happened to me, but none so thoroughly and intelligently addressed what I went through and what I needed to know. And Williams is a wonderful witty author who manages to write about real emotional (and physical) pain with depth and humor, able at avoiding any hint of whining or bitterness. (Some self-pity she allows herself, appropriately. I feel blessed that I found this book.
Kallie Kull
Read this book just in time… It saved me a lot of heartbreak in the end! Thank you to the author and all of the contributors to her research.
