As a woman who had also lost a spouse, there are many emotions in the book that I can totally relate to. Her in depth description of her relationship with her husband certainly honors his life. I think there may be too much information about all the minute details of his treatment. This information would certainly be helpful for those reading about pancreatic cancer but too much for those who are reading it without that experience.

The Best of Us: A Memoir by Joyce Maynard
Sept 2017

I received this digital book from Bloomsbury Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What a touching and honest memoir! Joyce Maynard displays remarkable strength in sharing her story. Every author has a story to tell, not just the ones conjured up with imagination. This is a deeply personal exploration into her brief but moving relationship with her soul mate. Most divorced people will be able to relate to her quest for a meaningful relationship post divorce. Although cliche, when you least expect something wonderful to happen is when you are presented with the unexpected.

It is wonderful to read how they relished everyday together before and after Jim's diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It is admirable the painful fight exerted against this growing "cancer" monster. They put up a vicious fight until the end. Accepting hospice is not "giving up" but a choice to once again take control over your life and death. I remember sitting with my father-in-law as he lay dying at home as he wanted. That takes courage to choose your ending by reflecting on your life and memories.

This is truly a memoir written from the heart. It is an easily read book that is hard to put down for the genuine life lessons she shares. I could feel the grief and relief to which she must have felt to confront her deepest feelings through writing. Similarly, I believe we all have painful memories of situations in which we might've handled differently in hindsight. Although, it is said that the best life lessons are learned through experience.

I had read, "Under the Influence", and had such mixed feelings about it. After reading this book, I find new meaning in those words. She was enduring her own challenges while writing that book.

I have been a fan of Joyce Maynard's work since I was a teenager and read "Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Old in the Sixties" (which I swear was a Scholastic book). I'm 60 now and I still remember parts of that book to this day.
The Best of Us is yet another wonderful saga about Joyce's life, although it is probably one of the hardest to read. I read about Joyce and Jim's marriage in "Vows" in the New York Times the Sunday it was published and I knew her husband had died, but reading the story of her life, their love, his untimely death and their fight to delay the inevitable was a wonderfully sad, horrifying love story and I would read it all over again in a heartbeat.
Having had a close relative who died of pancreatic cancer I kept flashing back to my aunt and what she must have gone through (although her story did not include surgery) but it was still easy to make comparisons. This is not a happy book but it's not a sad book either. It's a fascinating saga of a lives well lived and while Joyce faces her pain and the biggest mistakes of life with her usual honesty I am still eager to find out what the next "chapter" of her life will be like. I'm so glad she'll be here to write about it.

If you judge a memoir by how vulnerable and real the author is with us, the readers, than this is a 5 star book! After having read this book I have tremendous respect for the author, Joyce Maynard, who I have never read before. She opens her heart and soul by showing unlimited vulnerability as she shares her life story. Based on the synopsis of the book I thought I would immediately begin to read about her late husband's illness but his diagnosis wasn't shared until 40% of the way into the memoir. This story is really about a woman, a mother, a wife and and author who has had her share of happiness and quite a bit of sadness as she tries to find herself and love. I respect her for her honesty and I am so sad for her loss but I struggled a bit with the book as at times as I had a hard time connecting with her.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an early copy of this book.

Well-told story of finding love when you don't expect to and the pain of losing it. Joyce Maynard had been divorced for twenty five years when she met Jim. Shortly after their marriage, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Together, they tried to find a cure or at least a reprieve, but it was not to be. Maynard's perspective on love and loss is both poignant and uplifting.

Very authentic. I have enjoyed a number of Joyce Maynard's books, this was different, a memoir specifically allowing the reader a glimpse into her relationship with her partner as they met, married and he then was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At times I thought the author seemed selfish as she wanted to do for herself first, and then I realized how real that is. In life we often want to think of ourselves first but social norms force us to hide that - "be selfless", whatever, often times we don't want to but we do what is right according to the world. The author was so honest, to a fault a times, I never doubted her deep love for Jim as he suffered,, she suffered. In her early 60's during much of the book, it was as though she found her first true love. So bittersweet.

A special thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Joyce Maynard, author and journalist, discovers true love later in life. Before she me Jim, who we are told several times, has a great head of hair—I imagine Patrick Dempsey gets told this a lot too—Maynard believes she is done with marriage. She is fiercely independent, but open to companionship and ends up realizing that Jim is more than a companion, he is her partner.

The couple has a whirlwind romance, and marry, only to have their years together cut tragically short. Jim is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just after they celebrate their first year of marriage. Raw, honest, and heartbreaking, Maynard doesn't shy away from sharing the ups and downs of marriage with the strain of a terminal illness. She courageously writes about Jim's final days—her writing is beautiful and reminds us that love is fleeting, as is time, and that both are a gift to the heart.

Reading this book was like watching a grisly car wreck in slow motion; you know what's coming, and you know it isn't going to be pretty, but you can't take your eyes off it. Maynard's writing is spare, frank, and honest. She doesn't sugar coat anything, her own idiosyncrasies included, and I think that had a lot to do with the appeal of the book. She was selfish, controlling, hardheaded, and sometimes you think Jim should've earned sainthood for putting up with her, let alone loving her with such ferocity and devotion. It's rare for me to be moved to tears by a book, but this story was so incredibly heartbreaking I couldn't hold them back.
Kudos to Maynard for having the backbone to put the story down on paper so soon after Jim's death. I lost my youngest daughter to graft versus host disease over five years ago, and I have yet to bring myself to be able to write about it.

”Let us be lovers,
We’ll marry our fortunes together.
I’ve got some real estate
Here in my bag.”

”So we bought a pack of cigarettes,
And Mrs. Wagner pies
And walked off
To look for America.”
“America” by Simon & Garfunkel, words by Paul Simon

I began the year reading Joyce Maynard’s “Under the Influence” and years before that, I read “Labor Day,” which later became a movie. I have not read her 1998 memoir “At Home in the World” – yet. There’s vulnerability apparent in her writing, underneath the self-protecting armor she’s wrapped around herself.

She’d been divorced for twenty-five years, children more or less grown. And then, one day Jim walks into her life, and after a period of time he manages to convince he’s really “the one.” It wasn’t an easy task.

”On the Fourth of July weekend three years ago, at the age of fifty-nine, I married the first true partner I had ever known. “

This memoir is the story of their love, of this man who cherished her, who taught her so much about herself, her capacity to love, her willingness to give of herself, but also her determination to keep a portion of herself to herself. Some might see this as a fight to retain her own identity, but I felt it was more of an acclimation, a gradual allowing herself to fall into believing in this new land of Love.

”Not long after our one-year anniversary, my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”

This is lovely, but heartbreaking. Sad, but life affirming, and love affirming, as well. During the time they were pursuing various medical avenues for treatment, their love was tested, and strengthened. There were moments they each undoubtedly had when throwing in the towel might have tempted either one, but when she was weak, he was strong. And then, as time passed, more and more often it was her turn to be the strong one.

This is an incredibly poignant memoir, with many shared moments of the times they spent driving around in various cars, listening to music, meeting new people – a parking valet who would remember them years later after a simple, if generous gift they bestowed upon him. People they never met in person, but befriended who were in similar circumstances, wives needing to share their sorrows watching the man they love deteriorate, trying to do all, be all for everyone.

This isn’t a fun story, although there are sweet, fun, funny moments mentioned in their years spent together, moments of great joy, but there are also moments of despair, frustration, anger at the world, or no one in particular at the unfairness of it all. Life. The thing that makes this hard to read, and also makes this so beautiful, is Joyce Maynard’s willingness to bare her soul to show others that they are not alone. To know that someone else out there has been through this feeling, and is willing to put it out there for the world to read, to judge, and as much as some of those judgmental words have hurt her in the past, she’s doing it again. Just so someone else won’t have to feel so alone, so someone else will feel known and understood. Isn’t that what we all want, when it comes down to it?

”So I looked at the scenery,
She read her magazine;
And the moon rose over an open field.
‘Kathy, I’m lost,’ I said,
Though I knew she was sleeping,
‘I’m empty and aching and
I don’t know why.’”
“America” by Simon & Garfunkel, words by Paul Simon


Recommended


Pub Date: 05 Sep 2017

Many thanks for the ARC provided to Bloomsbury

Let me begin by saying I would never have finished this book if I did not feel an obligation to Netgalley to read and review the titles I request . Not because it wasn't well written, but because it was so painful to read. Maynard is an excellent writer with a remarkable memory. She has scrupulously recorded every detail of the story of the union of soulmates who have their happily-ever-after ending snatched away. Unfortunately, I have read this story before -- different particulars, but the same tragic tale. It is not something you want to plunge into for fun. However, if you haven't read this kind of memoir, it might be worth it to confront the inevitability of death. I did find it curious how much Jim was able to participate in, from travels, to concerts, to jam sessions when Maynard has already stressed he was at death's door. I also marveled at the unending supply of money they had for buying cars, houses, airplane tickets and medication not covered by insurance. It had the effect of turning the story into a fantasy. And why didn't they get that poor man a wheel chair long before the final concert he attended. Although I found myself skimming the unending courses of chemo and other medical details, the ending of the story which centered on Maynard's relationship with her husband was a beautiful tribute that I am glad to have read.

This book evoked so many different emotions. There were times where I felt that Joyce was being selfish and I was wondering how I could ever relate to such a person. But at the end, as I imagined her beside Jim watching him suffer and she decides to give him the extra doses of morphine, she became human to me.. I could feel her pain and relate as it brought back memories of watching my father suffer as I prayed for God to allow him to cross over even though it was tough for me to get over my greediness of wanting him physically here with me. A roller coaster of emotions as Ms. Maynard takes you along her journey. This book definitely leaves you pondering the whys, why nots and what ifs long after you've exited the ride.

Wasn't going to read this book, but so glad I did. Made me cry a few times, its very touching. Read this one, you won't regret it!
Thanks to author, Bloomsbury USA publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read.
While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

Heartbreaking so heartbreaking. So well written and impossible to put down. This is a must read!

In this intense and at times painful to read memoir, Joyce Maynard takes us through her relationship with Jim, from their first meeting through Match.com, to his untimely death from pancreatic cancer just a few years after their marriage. Searingly honest and thought-provoking, the author encourages the reader to reflect on life’s priorities, mentioning that so many things which had formerly seemed so important to her paled after the experience of living with and loving someone in unimaginable pain whose illness ultimately turned out to be terminal.

This is a very difficult review for me to write. I really love Joyce .....
and I'm still very sad for Joyce's loss. I was sooo happy for her when she married Jim!!! Jim died of pancreatic cancer.

When Bloomsbury sent me Joyce's book from Netgalley the other day -- It was unexpected. -- ( but 'many' thanks) --I had no idea Joyce's book was going on Netgalley.

I made donation to the Cancer Society months ago - in honor of Jim ( and Joyce), ... and pre-paid for this Hardcopy book -- which will arrive in the mail soon. I also plan to listen to the audiobook....just so I can hear Joyce 'share'. She's an awesome woman!!!

I've already shared this with Joyce -- but I'll share it here: I came to a place in reading
"The Best of Us", when I completely lost it. I turned into a crying mushy pancake....
I couldn't hold it together one more minute. I left my comfy chair - went to my room - and cried my eyes out on my bed. I don't even know what my thoughts were.....

There was a part in this story where Joyce and Jim were in San Miguel, Mexico. "Jim woke up with a fever so violent that no blankets could warm". -- oh, and this was Valentines Day.
Friends drove them to the emergency room. After getting different tests--Jim had some type of infection but the doctors antibiotics would keep things under control.

Joyce said -- they might have flown back to the San Francisco Bay area but Jim was feeling better and his daughter was coming for visit whom he really wanted to see. Jim and his daughter Jane had an uneasy relationship for years -- but things have been good since Jim's diagnosis-- so he wanted to stay.

AND HERE IS WHERE I LOST IT.... cried like a baby....
Joyce says: "I was happy about the visit too. Jane had asked if I'd bake pies for her wedding--and though the event was taking place 3000 miles from the kitchen from where I generally baked, and pie for 100 people was a lot of pie, her request seemed to signal good things in our relationship, so I told her yes".


I continued to cry on and off ... mostly on.... for the last 30% of this book!!!

....visit Mill Valley, Oakland, Layfayette, Berkeley, New Hampshire, New York, Paris, Guatemala, San Miguel......
Reading this book is both beautiful and sad. Joyce and Jim had a beautiful love relationship-- touching as can be!!!

Joyce and Jim shared quiet nights at home - they traveled- they enjoyed music - concerts- his Boxster Porsche ( Joyce loved being the passenger), Jim was a great photographer and played guitar and was a lawyer. Joyce is an awesome free spirit in her thrifty clothes with down to earth sincerity and honesty!

Joyce baked her famous pies- Jim had the Whipple surgery - chemotherapy - many hospital visits and doctors -- Joyce was the greatest honest and scared caretaker.
She talks about a time when she shared - intensely- with her friends on Facebook about Jim's Cancer. Requests -- and shared her gut truth about all that was going on - including being a caretaker -- sometimes feeling sorry for herself too. I was one of those friends. The post and conversations were powerful. I wanted to salute Joyce for allowing herself to be vulnerable.

Jim and Joyce moved to gorgeous - peaceful - home in Hunsaker Canyon in Layfayette .... ( an area I love myself), shortly before Jim got Cancer. I'm sad they won't be able to carry through with the dreams they had. Family - kids - grandchildren- friends visiting them.

The last concert Joyce and Jim went to together was at the outdoor Greek theater in Berkeley-- ( our favorite outdoor venue in the Bay Area-- love the intimacy). They saw Bob Dylan!!!! I was smiling and crying for them.

Thank You Netgalley, Bloomsbury, and Joyce Maynard: ALL OF YOU -- from the bottom of my heart!!!!

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC.
How heart-breaking would it be to meet the love of your life when you are almost 60, only to watch him die from pancreatic cancer? This memoir takes you through the love affair to the bitter end.

The book illustrates all the difficult choices that people have to go through when making treatment decisions. When is enough, finally enough. It's not just about the quantity of life, but ultimately the quality.

THE BEST OF US:: A MEMOIR
by JOYCE MAYNARD

SPOILER ALERT

As said in the Good Reads synopsis I will quote "THE BEST of US is a heart-wrenching, ultimately a life-affirming reflection on coming to understand true love through the experience of great loss." I can wholeheartedly agree with that quote because I have experienced it before myself. I have read somewhere recently where someday in the future there is going to be a medical scan that will show the evidence of a broken heart. In this outstanding memoir of Joyce Maynard's first initial meeting with her husband Jim on Match.com through his last night on earth after a nineteen month battle with pancreatic cancer, I was touched by this memoir to the deepest part of my soul.

Joyce says that no other story that she has ever told before has mattered to her more than this one. I myself was truly touched as I read as to how kind and brave Jim was and how much he truly loved Joyce and how much Joyce truly loved Jim. On July 4th weekend when Joyce was 59 years old she married Jim on a New Hampshire hillside surrounded with friends and family. This was to be the first time in both of their live's that they met their one and only true love partner.

"Remember this moment."

Not too much time passed by since their first anniversary when Jim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. My paternal grandfather, who I loved very much and was very much the Patriarch of the family got the same diagnosis. Things for my beloved grandfather went down hill very quickly. He died in a matter of a few month's of being diagnosed. Jim and Joyce fought Jim's cancer bravely and fiercely seeking out the best medical treatment with Joyce researching on both the
East and West coast's from clinical trials to surgeons to people who had survived asking important questions so they could make informed decisions.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I want to illuminate that before Joyce met Jim she had been single for twenty-five years, her children were all full grown off living their own lives and Joyce thought that she was through with marriage. After having a four and a half hour conversation over the phone with Jim where he talked about real things. He was honest with her about how it was for him growing up with an angry father. How he felt like a failure as a father because he left his wife and his kid's unfairly blamed him for getting out of a marriage that was destroying him. Jim was the most gentlest, kindest, supportive husband to Joyce.

Joyce and Jim met to go out to dinner and he thought she was a more of a knock-out in real life than in her profile picture on Match.com. They both felt strongly that they shared something real about how important parenting to them was. Followed by more dates. Then Joyce announced that she would not have sexual relations with Jim for 30 days because she was impressed with how gamely he was keeping up with her at a yearly festival they went to. Jim slowly moved in but she only allowed him a box for his things and she had a house in Mill Valley and him in Oakland when they married after they sold both properties and bought their home at Hunsaker Canyon.

It started with an endoscopy where the doctor told Joyce and Jim the devastating news that he had a tumor on his pancreas. "How does a person describe the moment her world ends? I felt it in my heart, a blow as real as a knifepoint going in. I thought I might throw up."
"I'm so sorry," the doctor said. "My father died of this." The tumor appeared to be 2.5 centimeters in diameter. The good news was the cancer was known as "locally advanced," meaning it hadn't had a chance to spread to other organs, not yet. The horrendous news was that the tumor had wrapped itself around an important vein in Jim's pancreas.

"In addition to being pressed up against an artery, the term for this stage of cancer was 'Borderline respectable. This meant that the prospects for surgically removing the tumor would be slim. Without surgery, Jim was likely to die within a matter of months, A Year at the most, probably."

After much agony on Joyce's part for it is her voice that is telling the story, all the research she did she and Jim first decided to go with a Dr. Miracle who was in southern California and treated Jim's condition with a drug none of the other doctors in the world were using. They tried that for three or four times at $6000.00 per infusion and then decided to get the whipple surgery which removes the tumor and took fourteen hours but Jim's quality of life was never the same.

My thoughts on the book: Here you had two people who truly found what it meant to be a life partner only to sadly have it snatched away from them by cancer way too soon. The short time they had together they made each other really happy. They were both excellent parent's. They would have made great grandparents. They were both very gallant and brave and strong people to face what they did and still keep functioning so well, they are a true inspiration to me. Before Jim had the whipple and got diagnosed and had the terrible side effects of chemo they were both very spry and active and had a lot of adventure travelling, but not nearly enough in the least of what they both deserved. This book was sad but very well written and I think Joyce Maynard is a very talented, caring person who I hope finds some happiness in the future.

Huge Thanks to Net Galley, Joyce Maynard may you find peace and light, Thank you to Bloomsbury publishing for my digital copy for a fair and honest review.

Sad, but great memoir by a long-time favorite author. Joyce Maynard writes about the death of her husband, and it's just beautiful.

I’ve followed Joyce Maynard for years on Facebook and was aware of her husband’s struggles with cancer. I read her long, beautifully written posts and felt her pain as her beloved husband died. So I was eager to get my hands on her memoir, The Best of Us.

Synopsis:

In 2011, when she was in her late fifties, beloved author and journalist Joyce Maynard met the first true partner she had ever known. Jim wore a rakish hat over a good head of hair; he asked real questions and gave real answers; he loved to see Joyce shine, both in and out of the spotlight; and he didn’t mind the mess she made in the kitchen. He was not the husband Joyce imagined, but he quickly became the partner she had always dreamed of.

Before they met, both had believed they were done with marriage, and even after they married, Joyce resolved that no one could alter her course of determined independence. Then, just after their one-year wedding anniversary, her new husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. During the nineteen months that followed, as they battled his illness together, she discovered for the first time what it really meant to be a couple–to be a true partner and to have one.

This is their story. Charting the course through their whirlwind romance, a marriage cut short by tragedy, and Joyce’s return to singleness on new terms, The Best of Us is a heart-wrenching, ultimately life-affirming reflection on coming to understand true love through the experience of great loss.