I want to make sure several of you know Joyce Maynard’s memoir, The Best of Us, comes with a trigger warning. It’s about a tough battle with pancreatic cancer. I know cancer, and pancreatic cancer may be a rough subject for several of you. Don’t read any more of this review if the subject is a problem.
Like Maynard’s husband, Jim Barringer, my husband died of pancreatic cancer. I knew what I was getting into when I picked up this book. I’m going to come right out and say when I hear “pancreatic cancer”, I think of it as a death sentence. My husband, Jim, was diagnosed in January and died in February, 2010. But, he had some of the same symptoms as Maynard’s husband for a while before he was diagnosed; back pain, yellowish skin. For us, we blamed those symptoms on my husband’s back that had been broken at one time, and his insistence on tanning beds. By the time he was diagnosed, it was too late for any treatments. We did our best to get Jim’s affairs in order, and he had hospice for only four days before he died.
Joyce Maynard’s book is broken into two parts, Before and After. She had many relationships, and a marriage that left her angry and bitter. She was an independent woman. She met Jim Barringer after they had both been divorced for a long period of time. They had grown children. She owned several houses. They married when she was fifty-nine and he was sixty-one, and hoped to have a long time together, enjoying travel, music, and eventually, grandchildren. Part of that first half of the book is about Maynard learning to be part of a couple, learning to trust, and make decisions with her husband, not on her own. It wasn’t as easy for her to be a wife as it was for her husband to want to be with her and protect her.
But, after a year and a half of marriage, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, with a tumor on his pancreas. They chose to fight the cancer with whatever means possible. She did research. They met with doctors across the country, and tried all kinds of treatments from surgery to healthy diets. That was their way of dealing with the cancer. It allowed them to carry on. “The belief that Jim might survive the cancer sustained us.” Maynard reached out to long-term survivors or spouses. Barringer attended a Pancreatic Cancer Men’s Breakfast Club. “Against all evidence to the contrary, we held on to hopefulness.”
Maynard and Barringer were desperate for a future and a normal life. They traveled when they could. Right up to the end, they enjoyed music, even attending a Bob Dylan concert as Barringer’s last time out of the house.
As I said, I knew enough about The Best of Us to know what I was getting into. I knew Maynard’s husband had died, but I wanted to see how someone else handled the diagnosis. How did someone deal with the treatment? We never had to make that decision, and I’m grateful for that, actually. It probably made it easier to cope when we weren’t trying all kinds of procedures. But, it’s never easy for the patient and the survivor to realize they’re going to die. I still remember when Jim said to me, “I”m going to die.”
The Best of Us was just what I was looking for. Joyce Maynard’s account of Before, and the life they hoped to lead is the prelude to the life they were forced to lead, one that really only would have one ending, at least at this time in medicine. It’s not an easy book to read, but I wanted to read her account. It’s a story of life, change, and death.
Joyce Maynard’s website is https://www.joycemaynard.com/.
The Best of Us by Joyce Maynard. Bloomsbury, 2017. ISBN 9781635570342 (hardcover), 437p.
FTC Full Disclosure – Library book
I know it must have been tough for you to read this and write about it. Maynard has had quite an interesting life. Her first claim to fame – well, notoriety – was her 8-months-long affair with J. D> Salinger, when she was 18 and he was 53. She wrote a “memoir” called LOOKING BACK: A CHRONICLE OF GROWING UP OLD IN THE SIXTIES, which I read and found interesting, as a member of the same generation. Was it “unbearable” as some critics said? In some ways, but she was an 18 year old girl. 25 years later she wrote AT HOME IN THE WORLD, a memoir of her affair with Salinger. Many critics gave it scathing reviews. She’s also written a dozen novels.
She has had an interesting life, Jeff. I did some digging before I read the book. I haven’t read other books by her, but the name was familiar, and it rang a bell that she was the one who wrote about her relationship with Salinger.
It wasn’t as difficult to read as some would think. I went into it knowing the subject matter.
I’ve read some similar books recently – not pancreatic cancer, necessarily, but where they knew the husband or wife was dying. Amy Bloom’s memoir – IN LOVE: A MEMOIR OF LOVE AND LOSS – comes immediately to mind, another later in life second marriage and a tragic end.
On a more personal level, what Bill Crider went through the last years of his life, first with Judy’s illness and then with his own, was very hard. `
I read Amy Bloom’s book. It’s not easy to read those, and even harder to be the person going through it.
My husband died two years ago from esophageal cancer, and even though there were warning signs we didn’t recognize them. They were too “ordinary,” I guess. Giving up the future is tough. Thanks for the review.
I’m sorry, Susan. That’s a beautiful way of putting it – “Giving up the future is tough.” I think Joyce Maynard would agree with you.
It must have been so difficult for you to read.
To me, that cancer is a death sentence. I remember a friend at work who retired suddenly. She came over to my desk to say good bye and she kept hugging me. I knew something must be wrong because she didn’t want to leave. I wish I had asked. One month later, we got an e-mail from her daughter, they went to Mexico for her to die of pancreatic cancer.
I found this on You Tube from a survivor! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub7_djySlHw I think the symptoms need to put out everywhere for possible survival.
I wanted to read it, Carol. It’s been 14 years, so it wasn’t fresh. It almost helps to read what someone else went through.
I’ll watch that. Thank you.
You are so brave, Lesa, to read this book even though you knew that it would be heart wrenching. I am so sorry for your loss. Your husband would be proud of you, and the space that you have created here. Thank you for your kindness and willingness to share.
Thank you, Mary. He would be so pleased with this space.
I don’t know that I’m brave. After 14 years, I could read it with only a few tears.
Lesa, I read your review of this book with such sadness because you were so generous to share your story with us, most of whom must be total strangers. I wish I’d ‘known’ you at the time. I would have sent out all the love in the world to both of you as you were going through such a horrendous time. I don’t how you coped. Anyway, belatedly, I am truly sorry.
And to echo Mary, you have indeed created a space here that anyone would be proud of, and I feel privileged to be part of it on Thursdays.
Thank you, Lindy. And, I don’t feel as if any of you are complete strangers. I think we all care about each other, even if many of us haven’t met.
I’m so glad you found your way here, for every day, not just Thursdays.