The Best of Us

April 1, 2017

New York Times best-selling author Maynard recalls her one true partner, a man she met in her late fifties. They married, but it was no happily-ever-after; her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer shortly after their first anniversary, and Maynard recounts the following 19 months, as she learned what it meant to be a couple. Featured at BEA.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 10, 2017
In this touching memoir, Maynard (To Die For; At Home in the World) chronicles her second marriage. She beautifully renders the joy of falling in love later in life and the pain of watching her husband die of pancreatic cancer. In her late 50s, after two decades of being single, Maynard met Jim, who she soon felt was the love of her life. On their first date, she opened up to him about problems from her past: in spite of her successful career as a writer, she suffered loneliness when her children grew up and left the house, and she attempted to fill the void by adopting two Ethiopian children. After a tumultuous period in which she tried to readapt to motherhood, she relinquished the children to another family. Jim’s response was to comfort her, and with a sense of joy and an immediate connection, they embarked on travels abroad and got married. They bought a home together and the future looked promising until he was diagnosed with a terminal cancer. Throughout this memoir of love, illness, and grief, Maynard shares how she and Jim coped with his frequent hospital visits, intense surgery, and medications. Maynard’s heartfelt story will resonate with those who have lost loved ones to cancer. Agent: Nicole Tourtelot, DeFiore and Co.

June 15, 2017
An acclaimed novelist recounts how a brief late-life marriage taught her the meaning of partnership.Maynard (Under the Influence, 2016, etc.) was a successful single woman in her late 50s who was "done with marriage" when she met Jim, a divorced San Francisco lawyer, on Match.com. Fit and handsome, Jim looked like he was "probably a Republican." But from their first open-hearted conversation, Maynard knew he was different. Still, caution ruled her actions. She had been independent and casually dating for more than 20 years and "wasn't sure I should try love anymore." However, the more time she spent with Jim, who accepted and loved the foibles other men had not, the more she realized that he was her "long-awaited sweetheart." He was the brave and loving "guard dog" who could give her the "big love" she had always wanted but never found. For the next year, they lived in a state of perpetual bliss. Nothing--not even past romantic and personal failures and family tensions--seemed to cast a shadow on their happiness. They married less than a year after they met and bought a beautiful home together, where they envisioned a future that included visits from grandchildren and harvesting olives from trees they would plant. Then, a year after they wed, doctors diagnosed Jim with pancreatic cancer. For the next 19 months, they embarked on a roller-coaster ride that took them from the pinnacle of hope to the depths of despair and finally to painful acceptance of Jim's inevitable demise. Told through loving, minutely remembered details that celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime love, the narrative, which only occasionally descends into overly sappy territory ("tourists in the country of love"), immerses readers in a story that, even at its darkest, strives to find meaning in calamity, heartbreak, and loss. A moving tribute to the evergreen lessons of the heart.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2017
In Erich Segal's indelible novel Love Story (1970), cancer tragically ends a great romance. Maynard (Under the Influence, 2016) could have used the same title for her latest memoir. Previously unlucky in love, the prolific journalist and author falls hard for a handsome, nice lawyer named Jim Barringer and, at 59, marries him. Both are divorced parents with three kids, and both share a dark sense of humor. Unfortunately, they don't get to live happily ever after; soon after their first wedding anniversary, Jim is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Over 18 months, he wastes away to 90 pounds. Still, he rallies to go to a Bob Dylan concert with Joyce with help from a team of old hippie nurses called Rock Medicine. Maynard isn't afraid to tell the truth. At one point, she gives Jim extra morphine, thinking he wouldn't want to hang on this way, and hospice reports her to the police. He keeps living, though, and Joyce keeps lying next to him in bed every night. At 64, 1,647 days after they met, he dies in his sleep. Expect Maynard's powerful descriptions to linger. This haunting story, penned by a master wordsmith, is a reminder to savor every loved one and every day.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)