{"id":4533,"date":"2022-02-27T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T10:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/CAIiENpQsDlydk7GOk1M68jqHQEqFwgEKg8IACoHCAowjuuKAzCWrzwwqIQY"},"modified":"2022-02-27T10:00:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T10:00:08","slug":"when-her-husband-said-he-wanted-to-die-amy-bloom-listened-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/?p=4533","title":{"rendered":"When Her Husband Said He Wanted to Die, Amy Bloom Listened – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The pandemic arrived \u201clike the snow at the end of \u2018The Dead,\u2019\u201d Bloom said, referring to James Joyce\u2019s classic story \u2014 a few flakes at first, then blanketing everything. Bloom\u2019s daughter, daughter-in-law and granddaughter came from Brooklyn to ride out the storm. Bloom kept writing in the afternoons. She laughed. \u201cMy kids tease me, they say, \u2018You expected to be sitting by the pond, in gray gauze, staring into the distance.\u2019\u201d Instead she was absorbed by work and the rhythms of family life.<\/p>\n

By September 2020, Bloom had a draft to share with her longtime editor, Kate Medina, the executive vice president, associate publisher and executive editorial director of Random House. Medina attended Bloom and Ameche\u2019s wedding and was at his memorial service; readers see her there in the book, quietly marking up a manuscript before the start of the ceremony.<\/p>\n

In a phone interview, Medina said she was accustomed to working with Bloom on novels, although she did edit \u201cNormal,\u201d Bloom\u2019s examination of gender and sexuality, which was published in 2002. She wasn\u2019t surprised or daunted by Bloom\u2019s decision to tell such a personal story. \u201cIf you\u2019re a writer and something like this happens, the healthiest thing to do is to write it,\u201d Medina said. \u201cYou can make up your mind whether you put it in a drawer, but you have enunciated the feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medina encouraged the braided structure of \u201cIn Love,\u201d which is, as its subtitle promises, a memoir of love and loss, in that order, with chapters alternating between the distant and recent past. \u201cThere\u2019s that Kierkegaard quote: \u2018We live our lives forward and understand them backward,\u2019\u201d Medina said. \u201cI think it\u2019s breathtaking the way Amy can write about the elephant in the room. Her forthrightness is on the page. So is her humor, and Brian\u2019s.\u201d <\/p>\n

Early reactions from readers have been positive, even rapturous. \u201cAmy Bloom writes with the full bandwidth of her humanity,\u201d one Goodreads reviewer effused. A recent widow wrote, also on Goodreads: \u201cI can only say that this book comes from a place of truth. It should be required reading for any grief group.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the anniversary of Ameche\u2019s death, Bloom brought a cup of tea out to the linden tree she planted in his honor. He had a sweet tooth, so she placed chocolates around a plaque engraved with a favorite Rumi quote. It reads: \u201cWhat is the body? Endurance. What is love? Gratitude. What is hidden in our chests? Laughter. What else? Compassion.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely feel his presence,\u201d Bloom said.<\/p>\n

As for how strangers will respond to \u201cIn Love,\u201d she appeared to be at peace. \u201cBrian\u2019s strong wish was that nobody would stop him, and he got his wish. And I was glad I could help him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pandemic arrived \u201clike the snow at the end of \u2018The Dead,\u2019\u201d Bloom said, referring to James Joyce\u2019s classic story \u2014 a few flakes at first, then blanketing everything. Bloom\u2019s daughter, daughter-in-law and granddaughter came from Brooklyn to ride out the storm. Bloom kept writing in the afternoons. She laughed. \u201cMy kids tease me, they say, \u2018You expected to be sitting by the pond, in gray gauze, staring into the distance.\u2019\u201d Instead she was absorbed by work and the rhythms of family life. By September 2020, Bloom had a draft to share with her longtime editor, Kate Medina, the executive… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut-cbd-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}