In February 2008, Raymond Smith, the 77-year-old husband of the writer Joyce Carol Oates, died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Princeton, N.J. They had been married for nearly 50 years.
"A Widow's Story" is a chronicle of that marriage, and a tribute to the steadfast man whom Oates recalls as "the gardener of our household." Above all, this book is a rumination on widowhood, and the struggle to reclaim identity in the aftermath of profound loss. Having been abruptly wrenched from her role as Smith's wife, Oates writes, "What a strange lucidity this seems to bring, like disinfectant slapped on an open wound."
She writes of widowhood as a terrible state, yet one that is also filled with moments of absurdity and black humor. The devastation that Oates feels is almost comical in its vastness, and the pills she is prescribed for her anxiety only seem to worsen her condition. She finds herself unable to complete even the simplest task, and seeks consolation in her familiar role as a teacher. (Oates is a longtime professor at Princeton University.) Her late husband, she notes, had "a capacity for enjoying life that isn't possible for me, somehow."
Oates receives condolence letters, e-mails and phone calls from writer-friends such as Mary Morris and Richard Ford, and from her colleague Edmund White, to whom she confesses her "powerful" suicidal urges: "I think it was a mistake not to follow Ray immediately, the night that he died," she writes. Another friend implores her to persevere, no matter what.
The most obvious companion to "A Widow's Story" is Joan Didion's 2005 memoir, "The Year of Magical Thinking," in which Didion similarly charts the abrupt loss of her husband of four decades, and pays tribute to their creative partnership. Oates shared only her nonfiction work with her husband, who was editor of the literary journal Ontario Review, yet their marriage felt intensely collaborative and mutually supportive. They were rarely apart.
If the temperature of Didion's memoir of widowhood was too cool at times, "A Widow's Story" seems just right - neither overly sentimental nor detached. Some scenes are simply harrowing, as when Oates rushes back to the hospital - too late - to be with her husband as he dies. "That I was sleeping at a time when my husband was dying is so horrible a thought, I can't confront it," she writes. Nor can she confront the outpouring of sympathy with which she is bombarded - "useless, unwanted, invariably heavy vases, pots, baskets, boxes, cartons to be carried in my aching arms" - most of which she promptly hauls to her overfilled garbage cans. Each new day brings the same refrain: "Mrs. Smith? Sign here, please" from a smiling delivery man at her doorstep.
At a time when the grieving, exhausted widow knows that she should be grateful for this bounty of gifts and efficiently crank out thank-you notes in response, she feels even more miserable. "Why are people sending me these things?" she writes. "Do they imagine that grief will be assuaged by chocolate-covered truffles, pâté de foie gras, pepperoni sausages?"
In fact, Oates feels so overwhelmed that she finds herself furious with her husband for being dead, and for having "ruined both our lives." She dreads both morning and night, experiencing a depth of loneliness that she has never known. Perhaps the best advice she receives is from her friend Gail Godwin: "Suffer, Joyce. Ray was worth it."
"A Widow's Story" is affecting as a portrait of a marriage, but it also addresses the occasionally fraught relationship between patient and doctor in times of emergency. When patients and their loved ones are at their most desperate and vulnerable, they must sometimes interact with physicians who speak to them in language that is clinical and condescending, and chilling in its lack of empathy. One doctor asks Oates whether she has had her husband "autopsied," which leaves her apoplectic.
This "handbook" on widowhood, as Oates calls it, is essential for anyone who has experienced loss. Whether detailing "the lengthy drumroll of death-duties" or, in her darkest moments, describing herself edging toward madness, Oates proves an utterly compelling protagonist. Her prose is gorgeous and precise.
Because of the profoundly sad event that triggered this book, one wishes that she had never written it. At the same time, we must be grateful that she did.