Review by Booklist Review
This piercing memoir from Henderson (The Twelve-Mile Straight, 2017) takes readers deep inside an enduring, painful marriage. Moving with supple grace between past and present, Henderson documents a fraught but loving relationship that began when she was in high school and her husband-to-be Aaron, seven years older, was working in a record store. Addicted to alcohol and drugs, and perpetually unemployed, he decided to get his life together after their children were born, while Henderson was working as a professor at Ithaca College. And that's when the trouble really began: hallucinations, painful rashes, a swollen stomach, and more physical symptoms that led him to threaten suicide and that were only quelled by massive intake of alcohol. Henderson's recounting is often excruciating to read, as she accompanies Aaron to one doctor or heath practitioner after another for years, hoping against hope for an answer to the mystery of his body's breakdown and feeling more and more that she and her husband are "two trees tangled around each other from the roots," caught in a "parasitic arrangement." She describes each scene and segment of their life in precise, delicate detail. Most notably, she refuses to settle for easy answers or predictable narratives.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Henderson (Ten Thousand Saints) combines a suspenseful medical mystery with rocky romance to chronicle the tumultuous history of her marriage in this surprisingly bland memoir. When her husband, Aaron, became the host for a slew of undiagnosable medical conditions--which began in 2011 as a rash, and gave way to skin lesions and severe psychological issues that lasted for years--she was forced to contend with two impossible questions: "Are you with the deluded patient? Or the unfeeling doctors?" From here, Henderson jumps through time to depict her and Aaron's beginnings as messy, passionate young lovers in college in the '90s, and, decades later, the trauma and addiction that haunted their relationship and family of four. Throughout, Henderson documents in exhaustive detail her ongoing struggle with her "executively dysfunctional" husband--often comparing him to a child--his "delusional parasitosis," substance abuse, and the way doctors dismiss his health issues. Though the book is ostensibly about love, Henderson offers few clues as to why she and her husband have stayed together despite the contempt, anger, and betrayal endemic in their relationship. It's a gut-wrenching story, but it's also one without heart. (Oct.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Henderson brings a novelist's sensibility to this memoir of her 20-year marriage and the chronic illness of her husband Aaron; she weaves their history with measured prose and emotion in alternating strands. Henderson (fiction writing, Ithaca Coll., NY; Ten Thousand Saints) traces her relationship with Aaron from their first meeting (she a senior finishing high school, he a music store clerk in his mid-20s), through its early years, the trials of her fledgling career, and his revelations of addiction and childhood abuse. The memoir's second thread chronicles Aaron's sudden reoccurring ailments: his stomach swells; his skin blooms with lesions that produce strange fibers; he swears he feels parasites infesting his body. Visits to doctors, specialists, and medical conferences provide few answers. As years pass without a solution, Aaron's mental health declines, and the mystery of his sickness leads to Henderson's deeper exploration of the nature of marriage itself and how physical and mental illness test and expand the boundaries of love and trust. VERDICT An intimate, absorbing, and painful look at chronic illness in a relationship. Readers in similar situations will likely find it strikes a deep chord, but anyone who has endured difficulties in a long-term relationship will find much to ponder here as well.--Kathleen McCallister, William & Mary Libs., Williamsburg, VA
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Portrait of a long-lasting marriage tempered by challenges ranging from drug abuse and infidelity to mental illness. Nearing the end of high school, Henderson, a straight-laced young woman, fell in with a handsome, older record-store clerk before heading to college. "Tomorrow I'd wear a blue tank top and no bra," she writes of their second date, "and afterward Aaron would insist that we play pool, and I'd spend the whole time shooting pool while standing perfectly straight, so as not to expose my A-cup cleavage." He was seven years older, worldly, and sexually experienced, while she had had a few fumbling dates and was, by her account, a bit klutzy. As she learned about Aaron's drug use, she also found evidence of alcohol abuse and philandering. Then evidence of another kind turned up: the possibility of schizophrenia, which eventually manifested in a terrible syndrome with blistering skin and endless pain. "The quart bottles begin to appear in the cabinet, in the recycling bin, on the kitchen counter," writes Henderson. "Blue gin the color of mouthwash. Watch him relax. Watch the sores fade to rosy scars." In time, the problem was identified as Morgellons disease, which, because it's not well understood, many doctors brush aside. Consulting the only book on Morgellons she could find on Amazon, she found some relevant information--e.g., "with no hope in sight, it is no wonder that most Morgellons patients have depression, anxiety, and/or suicidal thoughts and many have ended their lives." Though still fraught, the marriage survived the pandemic isolation and into the present. Henderson is self-aware enough to understand that her behavior has been sometimes codependent, and her prose is all fine turns of phrase with the rawest of nerve endings. The sole fault of the book is that it runs too long, with some repetition, and could have benefited from judicious trimming. A memoir of interest to anyone coping with a loved one's struggle with illness and dependency. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
