Tarfumes.com - Epilogue: A Memoir

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Manufacturer: Harper

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061254628
ISBN: 0061254622
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2008-09-01
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: 2008-08-26
Studio: Harper

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Editorial Reviews:

Widowed novelist, near seventy, ex-Park Avenue girl, ex-beatnik, ex-many other things too complicated to list here, loves big parties, summers at the beach, grandchildren, seeks interesting man for dinner and a movie.

Anne Roiphe was not quite seventy years old when her husband of nearly forty years unexpectedly passed away. But it was not until her daughters placed a personal ad in a literary journal that Roiphe began to consider the previously unimagined possibility of a new man. Moving between heartbreaking memories of her marriage and the pressing needs of a new day-to-day routine, Epilogue takes us on her journey into the unknown world of life after love.

Roiphe decides to reenter the dating world. But between new lunches, coffee dates, and e-mail exchanges, she wrestles with an unsettling loneliness. Recollections of marriage evoke complex, unexpected emotions on her journey through grief toward new companionship. In beautifully wrought vignettes, she recalls hailing a cab for the first time and learning to lock and unlock the front door—tasks her husband had always done.

Eloquent and astute, Epilogue tells the story of love rekindled and life remade. Roiphe offers us an elegant literary pastiche not of grief, but of hope and renewal.

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Almost Too Ambitious
Comment: Obviously, grief and loss impact the entirety of one's life. Roiphe, however, is at her best when she writes of concrete detail -- the objects of everyday life surrounding her mother on her mother's death bed, for instance -- but goes wide of the mark when venturing into matters of cosmic import.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Lots of self-pity
Comment: When Anne Roiphe's long-time husband dies, she writes that men are her "necessary other," and wonders: "Could it be that a woman without a man is always on the edge of appearing as a figure of fun, a disappointed woman like a nun or the obese girl that stays at home the night of the senior prom?" Ms. Rophie was so dependent on her late husband that she's unable to unlock the door of her apartment by herself or hail a cab. She's never done her own taxes or gone to the movies alone. If you're looking for a book about widowhood with a feminist perspective, expect to be disappointed.

Although I'm sympathetic to Rophie's loss, this book is filled with mean-spirited self-pity. Rophie owns an Upper West side co-op and a house in the Hamptons that she is able to sell after her husband's death. She's certainly in much better off than the majority of widowed women in this country (or the world, for that matter). But does her suffering give her empathy or insight into the lives of the less fortunate? No: "I have trouble staying at such a distance from myself that I can worry more about the orphans in Ethiopia that I do about who will have dinner with me tomorrow evening." Nuns and overweight teenage girls aren't the only objects of Rophie's scorn. She writes cruelly about an older woman neighbor with "yellow stained white hair" whose "back is bent over at a forty-five degree angle" with osteoporosis--"I should do more than nod and smile when I pass her. I should speak. But I don't." Much of the book is written in such short, flat uninflected sentences. Roiphe's life as a widow is one disappointment after another; her daughters live forty-five minutes away in Brooklyn and are "busy," and the men she hooks up with through New York Review of Books personal ads have protruding ears, kiss the wrong way or have messy personal histories. Even her sainted late husband comes in for criticism: "A more perfect man might have left me a life insurance policy." But there's some good news: Roiphe actually goes to the movies alone and enjoys it: "I am glad I went to the movies. I can go alone whenever I want." Much of the book is devoted to her attempts to meet men through personal ads or online. It feels sordid and a little sad. Rophie comes across as a self-absorbed woman with little insight into her own behavior.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Please tell me the story isn't over!
Comment: Dear Anne Roiphe,

I spent all yesterday afternoon and evening, reading from start to finish this lovely memoir. I was held in your spell, truly. But I am strangely
convinced (because I have to be?) that you have met a man to love again.

Please tell me!

Best wishes,
Josephine Carr
josephinecarr.com
JosephineCarrWrites.blogspot.com

Customer Rating:

Summary: Epiligue
Comment: Excellent book for widows, or for any married woman.
Very personal, intimate, writing that shares the feelings
of a woman who is articulate about her widowhood.

Also funny and entertaining in parts. I highly recommend it.

Customer Rating:

Summary: surprisingly engaging....although not an enjoyable book
Comment: I'm sure it's not surprising to anyone that this would not be an enjoyable book to read. I bought this book because I have a mother in law who is still suffering the loss of her husband who died a year and a half ago. I thought maybe this book could offer some sort of comfort since she cannot seem to find it anywhere else. It's obvious that the author can empathize.

I found the use of letters to describe people in her life a bit distracting. I think the book might have flowed a bit better with names instead. I was also a bit disappointed that the author never found another mate, although I am sure she is more so than I. I have found great respect for this woman to be able to put into words the lonliness and sadness that lay in the wake of someone who has lost their spouse. I was hoping to find the "answer" to getting back to normal after such a loss. None was given. Just the thoughts, emotion, and confusion that follow death. Although, there is some comfort to be had in the fact that these feelings seem to be normal.

As a person who is not widowed, it was an eye opener to what may lie ahead. It made me want to be a better person to my husband, while he is still alive to see it. I hope my mother in law will find some peace with this book.......we shall see.

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