Death & Grief
![Amy Bloom - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000APP47O.jpg)
In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss
This powerful memoir by New York Times bestselling author Amy Bloom is an illuminating story of two people whose love leads them to find a courageous way to part-and of a woman's struggle to go forward in the face of loss.
"What a book this is-full of everything that matters . . . gripping, moving, and beautifully told."-Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022-Oprah Daily, BookPage
Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer's disease.
Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace.
In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing-its ending. Written in Bloom's captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.
"What a book this is-full of everything that matters . . . gripping, moving, and beautifully told."-Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022-Oprah Daily, BookPage
Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer's disease.
Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace.
In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing-its ending. Written in Bloom's captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.
Editorial Reviews
"This shimmering love story and road map is must-read testimony. . . . You will never forget this book, and if you do, let's hope someone close to you remembers."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"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, 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 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 a story pulsing with raw life."-Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
"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, author of The Course of Love
"A remarkable book from one of the United States'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, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
"A stunning portrayal of how love can reveal itself in life's most difficult moments."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"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, 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 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 a story pulsing with raw life."-Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
"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, author of The Course of Love
"A remarkable book from one of the United States'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, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
"A stunning portrayal of how love can reveal itself in life's most difficult moments."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Short Excerpt Teaser
Sunday, January 26, 2020, Zurich, Switzerland
This trip to Zurich is a new, not quite normal version of something Brian and I love: traveling. Road trip, train ride, ferry ride, airplane anywhere. We like all travel and most shopping, and this trip to Zurich has all the accoutrements of our other trips and is also nothing like anything we've ever done. As we usually do, we take a car service to the airport so we can be fancy and also avoid the park-and-schlep, and even before Brian had Alzheimer's, our combined lack of direction adds twenty minutes to all transportation transitions. We have a restaurant meal before our 6 p.m. departure. I buy a stick of lipstick and a small tube of hand cream; Brian buys some candy. We share gum. We share a bottle of water.
On the plane, we enjoy the settling in, the attention of the flight attendants, who already like us because Brian is mindful about his size and doesn't swing his arm into someone else's drink and he expresses appreciation to every single Swissair representative. We seem like people who will not be screaming for more booze or more peanuts at midnight. No one loves business class more than people who always fly coach.
We are smiling from the moment we board. I arrange our business-class pods; we are gushingly polite to the attendants. It's obvious that we like each other and are happy to be traveling together. As soon as we get our beverages (in glasses!), we toast my sister and brother-in-law, who are paying for our business-class trip to Zurich.
Dignitas's office is in Zurich, and that's where we're headed. Dignitas is a Swiss nonprofit organization offering accompanied suicide. For the last twenty-two years, Dignitas has been the only place to go if you are an American citizen who wants to die and if you are not certifiably terminally ill with no more than six months to live. This is the current standard in the United States, even in the nine right-to-die states plus the District of Columbia, about which many older or chronically ill Americans harbor end-of-life fantasies and which I researched, at Brian's direction, until we discovered that the only place in the world for painless, peaceful, and legal suicide is Dignitas, in the suburbs of Zurich.
My sister had cried with me since the second appointment with the neurologist, when it took the doctor less than an hour to give Brian a mental-status exam and inform us that Brian almost certainly had Alzheimer's and had probably had it for several years, judging by his high IQ, his struggles with balance and proprioception, and his poor performance on the exam. It took Brian less than a week to decide that the "long goodbye" of Alzheimer's was not for him and less than a week for me to find Dignitas, at the end of several long Google paths. From summer to winter, my sister, Ellen, who loves me and loved Brian, did her best not to make suggestions, not to offer "if onlys," not to say that maybe Brian's Alzheimer's wouldn't be too bad or would progress very slowly, not to cry when I wasn't crying, and not to pour out her own grief at the loss of one of her favorite people and our compatible foursome. (When they met for the first time, fourteen years ago, Brian went into Ellen's kitchen with his winning ways and said, I really love your sister. My sister didn't turn around. She said, Hurt her and I will kill you.) Ellen called me early one morning in December, when we were pretty sure that we'd cleared the hurdles for Dignitas, and said, Just tell me what you need. I said, reluctantly, Twenty thousand, and my big sister said, Here's a check for thirty. We ended up spending every penny of it, between a couple of last big fishing trips for Brian, his not working, my not working, our eating out all the time, sometimes lunch and dinner, at the nicest restaurants in New Haven. We spent it on what was to be our last joint birthday celebration, and on four nights in the five-star hotel in Zurich and the car services and the tours of Zurich and my friend flying to and from Zurich to keep me company on the flight home, on whatever makes bad months bearable, plus the cost of Dignitas itself (around ten thousand dollars all in).
In our Swissair pods, Brian and I toast each other, and we say, Here's to you, a little hesitantly, instead of what we usually say, Cent'anni ("May we have a hundred years," a very Italian toast). There is no Cent'anni for us; we won't make it to our thirteenth wedding anniversary.
We lean closer to each other and then we pull back, each of us fussing with our shoes and carry-ons, each of us opening our little gift bags from the airline and pulling out the socks (yes) and the eye masks (never) and the tiny toothpastes and tiny toothbrushes, which we persist in believing will delight...
This trip to Zurich is a new, not quite normal version of something Brian and I love: traveling. Road trip, train ride, ferry ride, airplane anywhere. We like all travel and most shopping, and this trip to Zurich has all the accoutrements of our other trips and is also nothing like anything we've ever done. As we usually do, we take a car service to the airport so we can be fancy and also avoid the park-and-schlep, and even before Brian had Alzheimer's, our combined lack of direction adds twenty minutes to all transportation transitions. We have a restaurant meal before our 6 p.m. departure. I buy a stick of lipstick and a small tube of hand cream; Brian buys some candy. We share gum. We share a bottle of water.
On the plane, we enjoy the settling in, the attention of the flight attendants, who already like us because Brian is mindful about his size and doesn't swing his arm into someone else's drink and he expresses appreciation to every single Swissair representative. We seem like people who will not be screaming for more booze or more peanuts at midnight. No one loves business class more than people who always fly coach.
We are smiling from the moment we board. I arrange our business-class pods; we are gushingly polite to the attendants. It's obvious that we like each other and are happy to be traveling together. As soon as we get our beverages (in glasses!), we toast my sister and brother-in-law, who are paying for our business-class trip to Zurich.
Dignitas's office is in Zurich, and that's where we're headed. Dignitas is a Swiss nonprofit organization offering accompanied suicide. For the last twenty-two years, Dignitas has been the only place to go if you are an American citizen who wants to die and if you are not certifiably terminally ill with no more than six months to live. This is the current standard in the United States, even in the nine right-to-die states plus the District of Columbia, about which many older or chronically ill Americans harbor end-of-life fantasies and which I researched, at Brian's direction, until we discovered that the only place in the world for painless, peaceful, and legal suicide is Dignitas, in the suburbs of Zurich.
My sister had cried with me since the second appointment with the neurologist, when it took the doctor less than an hour to give Brian a mental-status exam and inform us that Brian almost certainly had Alzheimer's and had probably had it for several years, judging by his high IQ, his struggles with balance and proprioception, and his poor performance on the exam. It took Brian less than a week to decide that the "long goodbye" of Alzheimer's was not for him and less than a week for me to find Dignitas, at the end of several long Google paths. From summer to winter, my sister, Ellen, who loves me and loved Brian, did her best not to make suggestions, not to offer "if onlys," not to say that maybe Brian's Alzheimer's wouldn't be too bad or would progress very slowly, not to cry when I wasn't crying, and not to pour out her own grief at the loss of one of her favorite people and our compatible foursome. (When they met for the first time, fourteen years ago, Brian went into Ellen's kitchen with his winning ways and said, I really love your sister. My sister didn't turn around. She said, Hurt her and I will kill you.) Ellen called me early one morning in December, when we were pretty sure that we'd cleared the hurdles for Dignitas, and said, Just tell me what you need. I said, reluctantly, Twenty thousand, and my big sister said, Here's a check for thirty. We ended up spending every penny of it, between a couple of last big fishing trips for Brian, his not working, my not working, our eating out all the time, sometimes lunch and dinner, at the nicest restaurants in New Haven. We spent it on what was to be our last joint birthday celebration, and on four nights in the five-star hotel in Zurich and the car services and the tours of Zurich and my friend flying to and from Zurich to keep me company on the flight home, on whatever makes bad months bearable, plus the cost of Dignitas itself (around ten thousand dollars all in).
In our Swissair pods, Brian and I toast each other, and we say, Here's to you, a little hesitantly, instead of what we usually say, Cent'anni ("May we have a hundred years," a very Italian toast). There is no Cent'anni for us; we won't make it to our thirteenth wedding anniversary.
We lean closer to each other and then we pull back, each of us fussing with our shoes and carry-ons, each of us opening our little gift bags from the airline and pulling out the socks (yes) and the eye masks (never) and the tiny toothpastes and tiny toothbrushes, which we persist in believing will delight...
