Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal
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Overview
"Heart-wrenching but triumphant."--Glamour
"A lyrical, haunting, and utterly gripping memoir."
--Redbook
"A dark, evocative memoir from a woman forced to come to terms with her husband's death and the revelation of his infidelity."
--Shelf Awareness
"A fascinating memoir."
--People
"A delectable summer read."
--USA Today
"She brings refreshing candor to a startling, painful tale."
--New York Times
"A riveting memoir."
--Real Simple
"...lyrical, moving prose."
--Working Mother
"Metz's Perfection chronicles with lapidary precision one woman's climb back to happiness after not just a spouse's death, but also the shocking recognition that her life before that death was not what she had thought it was. The journey is a painful one, but Ms. Metz is much the stronger for having survived to recount it."
--Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia
"Julie Metz's memoir of how her marriage unraveled after her mate's death is piercingly honest, haunting, and heartbreaking. Anyone who has ever been in a bad relationship will over-identify."
--Susan Shapiro, author of Five Men Who Broke My Heart and Lighting Up
"It is impossible to put Perfection down as we follow Julie Metz through her true story of love, lies, loss, and moving forward. Her raw and brave writing makes you want to cheer Metz on as she pieces her life back together, one beautiful sentence at a time."
--Marian Fontana, author of A Widow's Walk
"This aching memoir of love, loss, and deception is candid and compelling. I found myself rooting for Julie Metz in her search for a happy 'second life.'"
--Hilma Wolitzer, author of The Doctor's Daughter and Hearts
Julie Metz's life changes forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapses on the kitchen floor and dies in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old is the young widow in a bucolic small town. And this is only the beginning. Seven months after Henry's death, just when Julie thinks she is emerging from the worst of it, comes the rest of it: She discovers that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.
"He loved you so much." That's what everyone keeps telling her. It's true that he loved Julie and their six-year-old daughter ebulliently and devotedly, but as she starts to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life without Henry in it, she learns that Henry had been unfaithful throughout their twelve years of marriage. The most damaging affair was ongoing--a tumultuous relationship that ended only with Henry's death. For Julie, the only thing to do was to get at the real truth--to strip away the veneer of "perfection" that was her life and confront each of the women beneath the veneer.
Perfection is the story of Julie Metz's journey through chaos and transformation as she creates a different life for herself and her young daughter. It is the story of coming to terms with painful truths, of rebuilding both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood. It is a story of rebirth and happiness--if not perfection.
Synopsis
Julie Metz had seemingly the perfect life—an adoring husband, a happy, spirited daughter, a lovely old house in a quaint suburban town—but it was all a lie.
Julie Metz's life changed forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapsed on the kitchen floor and died in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old became the young widow in her bucolic small town. But that was only the beginning. Seven months after Henry's death, just when Julie thought she was emerging from the worst of it, came the rest of it: She discovered that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.
Perfection is the story of Metz's journey through chaos and transformation as she creates a different life for herself and for her young daughter. It is the story of rebuilding both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood, of rebirth and happiness—if not perfection.
Julie Metz is a graphic designer, artist, and freelance writer whose essays have appeared in publications including Glamour and Hemispheres magazines and the online story site mrbellersneighborhood.com. The recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, she lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter and partner.
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
[Ms. Metz] brings refreshing candor to a startling, painful tale.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The second of Julie Metz's marriage began six months after her husband's sudden death. It was then that she first learned that her supposed partner for life had been unfaithful throughout their 13-year marriage. Unable to scuttle this painful information, she began to reconstruct her spouse's life, one mistress at a time. Perfection recounts a mission that begins as masochism, but ends as catharsis. This powerful memoir speaks to anyone who has been hurt in a relationship.
Redbook
Lyrical, haunting, and utterly gripping.Janet Maslin
[Ms. Metz] brings refreshing candor to a startling, painful tale.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
As recounted in this dark and affecting memoir, Metz's discovery of her husband's long trail of philandering well after he died reveals the state of willful ignorance and comfortable self-deception that reigned in her marriage. At their home in the northern suburbs of New York City on June 8, 2003, Henry, her husband of 13 years, suffered sudden cardiac arrest, leaving the author, a 44-year-old graphic artist, widowed and the sole caretaker of their six-year-old daughter, Liza. Initially unable to face the details surrounding his death, she left to her friends the task of cleaning out her dead husband's office, though those same well-meaning people hid from her the truth they gleaned from Henry's computer files and correspondence: he had been enjoying a two-year affair with another woman in their town, as well as numerous other dalliances. Metz, after the shock of Henry's death, found solace in shopping and flirting with a much younger artist, Tomas, who was also friendly with Henry; once Tomas intimated that Henry had another life, the author began digging, calling and e-mailing every woman she learned had had a relationship with her husband, obsessed with finding the truth. Metz's road to emotional honesty proves cautionary and trying. (June)
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