Amy Bloom and Brian Ameche were a handsome couple. I know this not because there’s a photograph of them in Bloom’s new memoir ... I know this because I was so moved by Bloom’s bittersweet, truth-dealing book that I looked them up and read whatever I could find ... I’m not sure why I hadn’t until now read Bloom’s fiction. Maybe her soft, generic titles...were a deterrent. The title of this memoir is similar ... Not reading her: my loss. Bloom has one of those warm, wised-up, tolerantly misanthropic New York voices, in the manner of Laurie Colwin and Sloane Crosley and Allegra Goodman and Nora Ephron, and an ability to deepen her tone at will. I am not, as are these writers, Jewish. But when I read them I feel I’ve found my people ... Bloom tells this story with grace and tact. Scenes of their trip to Zurich are shuffled with scenes from their courtship and marriage ... There are a lot of tears in this memoir ... Part of what makes this book moving is Bloom’s toughness. She’s a mama bear, in the right ways. She doesn’t go overboard in explaining her moral reasoning. She doesn’t have to. Her title is her explanation.
... deeply stirring ... To manage such hefty subject matter, Bloom artfully divides the book into manageable chunks of very short chapters that are titled with either a date and place, or something playful ... any scientific data is limited to that which enhances the reader’s experience of Bloom’s struggle to honor her husband’s wish ... Philosophical questions regarding the self and ethics orbit the largely secular narrative without dominating it. Wisely, Bloom remains in the trenches of daily life, where the juxtaposition of normalcy with what’s happening to her husband maintains emotional torque for the reader, who is never asked to 'wait outside' — even for the 20 minutes after Brian has drunk the sodium pentobarbital that will end his life ... That said, there are moments of humor ... Bloom’s technical prowess is evident in her conscription of banal details to preface profound and sobering insights into love, marriage and death ... The most powerful scenes occur, understandably, in the closing chapters. The reader knows the end is coming, but when it does, the fact that it still feels like a shock is a testament to Bloom’s clear, lyrical prose about a subject that would cripple many of her peers ... As with all great books about dying, In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss does not terrorize with grim statistics and forewarnings but rather destigmatizes euthanasia and enriches the reader’s life with urgency and gratitude. It renews those joys of being In Love with the people around us — despite the numbing effects of routine and familiarity which so often cause happiness to lapse in middle age.
... [a] beautiful, poignant, darkly funny new memoir ... Bloom, a psychotherapist as well as an author, brings to her heart-rending task the skills of both professions: a clinician’s intimate knowledge of diseases of the brain and a novelist’s intuitive understanding of the human heart. To that potent mix, she throws in the sarcastic zingers and comic timing of a Borscht Belt comedian ... Bloom is terrific at sketching character ... Bloom relates the multiplying signs of Brian’s memory loss in a straightforward fashion—but with a surprising amount of suspense ... Bloom has a talent for mixing the prosaic and profound, the slapstick and the serious, which makes the book, despite its depressing subject matter, a pleasure to read. Rarely has a memoir about death been so full of life.
Bloom's memoir certainly isn't run-of-the-mill ... Bloom's subject is, once again, love writ large. But the question overshadowing this memoir is how far you'd be willing to go for the one you love. Would you agree to help your beloved end his life when he receives a hopeless diagnosis? ... In writing openly and heartrendingly about euthanasia, Bloom breaks new ground. Be prepared to be shaken. Arm yourself with tissues, and don't even think about reading this book in public ... In Love is an unsettling profile in courage. It certainly took uncommon courage and compassion for Bloom to live this story, and still more courage for her to accede to Brian's request that she write about it.
... [a] courageous howl of a memoir ... though never less than expertly crafted, this is a book whose temporal shifts can feel appropriately unmooring ... it’s also consistently funny. Very funny ... Heartache makes her savvy and sarcastic, a tone she pairs with a memorable descriptive shorthand whose economy underscores the ticking clock at her narrative’s centre, and all the ambivalence that represents for her ... As well as being a novelist, Bloom is a psychotherapist, intimate with all things 'shrinky' (her word), and yet she details her own feelings – her anguish and anxiety and exhausted irritation – with disarming immediacy.
[Bloom] can make you laugh and break your heart in the same beat ... This is not a misery memoir and it is without self-aggrandisement. She does not ask for pity and she does not present herself as a noble heroine. Her situation was an awful one. She handled it as well as she could, which is not always as well as she would have liked ... Here is an autobiographical book that, for once, does not induce the guilty thought in a reader ... A sharp observer and an immaculate stylist, Bloom balances an admirable lack of sentimentality with the frank expression of her love for the man she felt slipping away and then helped to die.
... a memoir with a difference, one with an ethical, emotional and philosophical edge on most grief memoirs ... The extraordinary story is told with humour and humanity ... Bloom provides colourful detail about food, clothes, places and just enough about medical procedures. Apart from being a refreshingly frank account of a marriage (they quarrel sometimes, they use Viagra) it is an exploration or even a definition of true love. Most significantly, it opens the way for a discussion about the right to die ... Lively, accessible and deeply thoughtful, In Love is a truly important book.
Amy Bloom is known for examining the dynamics of intimate relationships in her fiction...yet never has she gotten closer to the flame than in this memoir of her marriage ... In the compressed, gripping pages...scenes alternate between the couple’s grim journey and the strenuous months that led up to it ... Suffering simply hurts, but Bloom shares the details without flinching ... People who are disturbed by the way death in the United States seems increasingly impersonal, or passionate about giving the people they love agency to do what they want to do, will strongly connect to this book—but so will anyone interested in deep stories of human connection.
Bloom looks back on the beauty and turmoil of accompanying her husband through the final days of his life in this deeply moving memoir ... With passion and sharp wit, she jumps back and forth between the beginning of their relationship, the Herculean effort it took to secure an agreement with Dignitas, and the painful anticipation of the final trip to Switzerland. Most poignant are the intimate moments they share as they make the most of their last days together ... The result is a stunning portrayal of how love can reveal itself in life’s most difficult moments.
