Rebecca Woolf – författare

A beautifully written “grief-and-relief” memoir that addresses difficult truths we’re afraid to admit about death, marriage, sex, and how the loss of a partner can lead to rebirth.

You don’t know what kind of parent you’re going to be until you have children. You don’t know what kind of wife you’re going to be until years into your marriage. And you don’t know what kind of widow you’re going to be until you leave the death bed of your spouse and begin a different life.

Rebecca and Hal had a normal marriage. Four kids, a house, jobs that paid the bills. They also had resentment that sometimes teetered on hatred, years of no sex, a handful of affairs, and long-simmering anger.

Then one night, Hal felt knots in his stomach. Several doctor appointments later, he discovered he had stage four pancreatic cancer, and four months later, he was dead. He was 44.

All of This chronicles the months before Hal’s death—and Rebecca’s rebirth after he was gone. With incredible honesty, Rebecca reflects on how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own: to love and to loathe him; to celebrate and criticize him, and finally, to forgive him and herself for escaping a marriage they no longer wanted.

Compelling and brilliantly nuanced, All of This is one woman’s story of what it means to be a mother, a widow, and a sexual being, finding freedom on the other side of a relationship that nearly broke her.

“Beautifully written, complex, provocative, painful, genuine...an unforgettable memoir.”—ROXANE GAY

“Wonderfully lyrical and uncomfortably honest in a way that is so rare, yet so needed.”—JENNY LAWSON

“Disturbing and profound, this intimate book also reveals the sometimes-labyrinthine nature of the bonds that unite people in love...A provocative and memorable work.”—Kirkus Reviews

After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died.

In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband’s death—and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own.

Stunning, compelling, and brilliantly nuanced, All of This is one woman’s story of embracing the complexities of grief without shame—as a mother, a widow, and a sexual being—and emerging on the other side of a relationship with gratitude and relief.