You with the Sad Eyes
Christina Applegate
Both books explore Biography & Autobiography
The Best of Us
An unusually honest memoir of finding real partnership late in life and losing it to cancer, written by someone willing to show her own failings alongside the love.
What It's About
Joyce Maynard spent decades believing she was better off alone. After a difficult marriage and years of raising children on her own, she met Jim in her late fifties, a man who seemed to genuinely enjoy her and asked nothing that felt like a cage. They married, and barely a year later he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This memoir follows the courtship, the short marriage, the long fight through treatment, and what came after.
Maynard writes in the confessional, highly personal style she is known for. She does not present herself as a saintly caregiver. She is candid about her stubbornness, her fear of dependence, her doubts early in the relationship, and the strain of tending to someone she loves while the outcome grows clearer. The medical chapters are detailed and often hard to read, but they sit beside scenes of ordinary pleasure: meals, travel, small jokes, the texture of a shared life.
Reading it feels less like a grief manual and more like sitting with a friend who tells you everything, including the parts that do not flatter her. It moves quickly, emotionally intense but rarely sentimental, and many readers find themselves thinking about their own relationships afterward. It suits book clubs because it raises questions about independence, compromise, and how much we really let other people in.
Read this if you…
- are drawn to candid memoirs about love found in midlife or later
- have cared for a seriously ill partner or expect to and want an honest companion
- enjoy book-club picks that spark debate about relationships and independence
Skip it if you…
- are currently grieving a recent loss and need something gentler than detailed accounts of decline
- find highly self-focused confessional writing grating
Key Ideas
- 1
Partnership learned late, not given early
Maynard argues, through her own experience, that she did not understand what it meant to be part of a couple until her fifties. The book traces how a fiercely independent person slowly learns to rely on someone and be relied upon, suggesting that real intimacy is a skill that can arrive at any age, sometimes only under pressure.
- 2
Caregiving reveals who we are
The months of treatment strip away pretense. Maynard shows how illness turns a romance into daily logistics, decisions about doctors and trials, and exhausting vigilance. She is frank that caregiving brought out both her best qualities and her worst, and that love under these conditions looks far less glamorous and far more practical than the courtship that preceded it.
- 3
Honesty over flattering self-portraits
A defining feature is Maynard's willingness to look bad on the page. She records her impatience, her controlling streak, and moments she later regretted. This candor is what makes the book feel true rather than tidy, and it invites readers to measure their own behavior in relationships without being lectured.
- 4
Grief as a doorway, not an ending
The final stretch looks at returning to single life on different terms. Rather than presenting loss as the end of her story, Maynard reflects on how the marriage changed her sense of herself and what she wants from the years ahead, framing grief as something that can deepen a person rather than simply diminish them.
Limitations
Some readers find Maynard self-absorbed, noting that the book centers her feelings and needs even in Jim's illness, and that he can come across more as an idealized figure than a fully rounded person. The medical sections are lengthy and may feel repetitive. Readers seeking practical guidance on pancreatic cancer or caregiving will find personal experience rather than advice. The privileged circumstances, including access to treatment options and travel, may make it feel less relatable to some, though the emotional core holds up.
Questions Readers Ask
- Is The Best of Us mainly about cancer?
- Cancer dominates the middle and later sections, but the book is equally about the relationship itself: how two people who had given up on marriage found each other, and how Maynard learned to be a true partner. The courtship and the aftermath frame the illness, so it reads as a love story first.
- Is it good for book clubs?
- Yes. It was recommended for reading groups, and it reliably provokes discussion. Readers often disagree about Maynard herself, whether her honesty is brave or self-indulgent, which makes for lively conversation about marriage, independence, caregiving, and what we owe the people we love.
- How does it compare to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking?
- Didion's book is cooler and more analytical, focused on the strange mental state of sudden grief. Maynard's is warmer, messier, and more emotionally direct, covering a long illness rather than an abrupt death, and spending far more time on the romance before the loss.
- Published
- 2017
- ISBN
- 9781635570342
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Biographies
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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