Eleanor met Aaron when she was just a teenager and he was working at a local record store. Escaping the clichâes of fleeting young love, their summer romance bloomed into a relationship that survived college and culminated in a marriage and two children. On top of the typical stresses of parenting, money, and work, there were Aaron's untended wounds of depression, addiction, and family trauma. Then, when burning lesions appeared on his body overnight, Eleanor was as baffled as his doctors. There seemed to be no obvious diagnosis, let alone a cure.
Henderson’s writing will pull at your every heart string. She is raw, emotional, vulnerable. Through it all, she allows herself to be wholly human ... above all else, the story of a marriage that, like any, is filled with both an abundance of love and an abundance of obstacles. Henderson is able to craft the complexity of a relationship filled with understanding and mutual respect, yet at the same time, extreme disconnect.
... incredible ... The descriptions of Aaron’s strange illnesses are vivid and unambiguous (including lesions, rashes and bleeding), and parasites, real or imagined, make many appearances. In many ways, this memoir is a compelling medical mystery, and anyone who is interested in the disputed existence of Morgellons disease will have lots to chew on here ... not a traditional love story, but it is a love story—one as heart-wrenching as it is heart-filling. Reading it will prompt you to give the meaning of 'in sickness and in health' a good, long thought.
A relentlessly visceral memoir ... It’s a raw, unsettling read. There are moments of beautifully precise writing ... But there are also pages and pages that feel so personal, so unfiltered, so full of pustules, sores, vomit, fibers, meltdowns and suicide attempts, that some readers might be less appreciative of her openness than overwhelmed by the gory, upsetting minutia ... The book jumps back and forth in time, which makes the nightmarish but doggedly detailed story difficult to follow ... Readers with chronically ill spouses might find this memoir comforting; those who can’t resist rubbernecking might find it fascinating.
