The Best of Us, Joyce Maynard
The Best of Us, Joyce Maynard
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The Best of Us
A Memoir

Author: Joyce Maynard

Narrator: Joyce Maynard

Unabridged: 12 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/05/2017


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.

About Joyce Maynard

Joyce Maynard is the author of several books including the novels To Die For and Labor Day (both adapted for film) and the bestselling memoir At Home in the World. Her essays and columns have appeared in dozens of publications and numerous collections. She is a frequent performer with The Moth, a fellow of the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, and founder of the Lake Atitlan Writers' Workshop. She is the mother of three grown children, and makes her home in Lafayette, California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Esil on September 10, 2017

Joyce Maynard's memoir of her husband's battle with pancreatic cancer hit awfully close to home. My father died of pancreatic cancer close to eight years ago. It's a particularly nasty cancer because it is almost always a death sentence, and it can move brutally fast. I have vivid memories of my fat......more

Goodreads review by JanB on July 24, 2017

This memoir is a later-in-life love story between Joyce and Jim, who passed away last year. Joyce writes honestly and beautifully - I love her 'voice". Her story is full of a passion and zest for life, with hard-won wisdom about what a partnership really means. By the end I felt I knew Joyce and Jim......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on October 18, 2017

Follow me for all reviews on [URL not allowed] I highly recommend reading The Best of Us , just make sure you have a box of tissues. Joyce Maynard finds the love of her life in her 50s, many years after being divorced and raising her children as a single mother. She and Jim, her......more