Happens Every Day
An All-too-true Story
Scribner · Print & ebook · March 2, 2010
Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life—a handsome, intelligent, loving husband who was a professor; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house in their Midwestern college town; the time and place to express all her ebullience and affection and optimism.
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- Who it’s for
- A sharp, intimate memoir with enough bite for a long conversation after.
- Genres
- Personal Memoirs, Dysfunctional Families, Women's Lives
- Published
- Scribner, March 2, 2010
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For younger readers: The Memory of Light, Just One Day, Grief Girl
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life—a handsome, intelligent, loving husband who was a professor; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house in their Midwestern college town; the time and place to express all her ebullience and affection and optimism. Suddenly, the life Isabel had made crumbled. Her husband, Josiah, announced that he was leaving her and their two young sons. "Happens every day," said a friend.
Continue reading
Far from a self-pitying diatribe, Happens Every Day reads like an intimate conversation between friends. It is a dizzyingly candid, compulsively readable, ultimately redemptive story about love, marriage, family, heartbreak, and the unexpected turns of a life. On the one hand, reading this book is like watching a train wreck. On the other hand, as Gillies herself says, it is about trying to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, and loving your life even if it has slipped away.
Sharp Territory
A sharp, intimate memoir with enough bite for a long conversation after.
Come here for
- memoir edge
- book-club conversation
Expect
- edgy, sustained read
- marriage and divorce under the lens
Where it sits
| Personal Memoirs | 90% |
|---|---|
| Women's Lives | 36% |
| Dysfunctional Families | 31% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Biography & Memoir
- Lives in Entertainment
- Personal Memoirs
- Authors
- Isabel Gillies
- Publisher
- Scribner
- Published
- March 2, 2010
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Biography & Memoir