Three years ago, the release of my first book changed my life - just not like I thought it would
Some of the most important lessons are the ones you don't expect
Three years ago today, I woke up giddy that my life was about to change. And it was. Just not for the reasons I’d imagined. And it’s taken me this long to really understand it.
I wrote a book about my grief over the death of my husband, and released it, unexpectedly, into a grieving world. And as much as people have told me it’s helped them through their loss, their appreciation has helped me grieve my lost vision of what I thought success was supposed to be.
I’d been living with the date “March 10, 2020” in my head for more than a year, because that’s the day that “Black Widow,” my first book and the memoir I’d written about my first year of widowhood, was set for release by Little, Brown and Company. A week earlier, I’d had a giddy, fancy celebration of my book on Palm Beach, with my grandma, all my college roommates and James Patterson. And things were only going to get better, right?
I’d already planned what bookstore I was going to go first, to hold that teal hardcover beauty in my hand. I already had a whole box of them in my bedroom, but I was going to be able to walk into a public space with other people who didn’t have one, where they could buy one…no, WOULD BUY ONE. And around the world everyone at every bookstore around the world was going to buy one, or two, and then I was going to be on The Today Show a month later, as well as a burgeoning tour with cities from New York to Miami.
I was gonna be a big deal. I was going to not have to rely financially on my almost two-decade job at a newspaper that had just had a second round of layoffs in a matter of months. I was going to be able to move my family back to Maryland, tour around the country with my kid in tow, and maybe meet a nice fellow single writer on the road with savings and his own real estate. And in the meantime, I’d be sharing an important story about grief, and how it doesn’t have a shape or a template. I’d be able to look people in the face and tell them that their story, their coping, their hearts were enough, to hug them and tell them it was normal to be messy and uncertain, because everybody is. And that we were going to be OK.
It was all about to change, y’all!
And boy, did it. Just not in the way that I had planned.
If you’ve been coherent for the last three years you can look at that date, then at all the touring and hugging and looking at people face to face, and know none of that happened. Because my book came out about a week before Covid lockdown, and I very quickly watched everything that was to come - the book signings, the travel with my kid, the in-studio visit with Hoda and Jenna - get canceled within about a week. Everything I’d looked forward to since I got the call that “Black Widow” had been sold to a major house and was really, super, duper real was gone. Vanished. Kaput.
It wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It was devastating, but not in comparison to the pandemic, which was THE LITERAL WORST THING IN THE WORLD. I tried not to think about my disappointment - certainly not to voice it - because there were people dying, including some I cared about. And then the economy was crashing, we were all stuck in stasis and the rumbling of racial reckoning long overdue had finally shook us. Everything was on fire. To paraphrase Shawn Colvin, the world was burning down.
So I couldn’t really be sad about a book, when everything was standing still and moving at a dizzying speed, all at the same time. Except I was sad. But I couldn’t dwell on it, so I put my head down, turned my Zoom on, and made a new plan. I promoted “Black Widow” from my bedroom, talking to everyone from other grieving people to readers to Hoda and Jenna. It was not the same, but I was so lucky. I had health insurance, stability, WIFI and all of the things that kept the privileged safer than most.
I tried not to think about how the book, well-reviewed as it was, was not selling the way I’d expected. I tried not to imagine that I was cursed, that had the book come out just a month earlier, I’d have had some traction, some foundation, before everything shut down. Every time I went down that rabbit hole, because I had time to dwell on it sitting at home and not behind a table signing books, I smacked myself for being a jerk. It was terrible timing, sure. But I was still alive. What kind of idiot made a pandemic about them? There were many other writers - and I became friends with a lot of them - who were in the same boat. So we did what all the art kids do in the movies - banded together and planned online readings, bought each other’s books, talked each other through the unfairness.
In the meantime, my life did change. I quit my job at the paper I’d loved, dug into my 401k and moved my son, my mother and I back to Baltimore, where I bought a house and briefly took a remote corporate job. Life was still weird, but I had whatever passes for certainty in the middle of chaos, and it was OK. And I was still promoting “Black Widow,” from a different bedroom, doing interviews and appearances and trying not the look at the sales, which were not great.
But a weird thing happened as I was trying not to think about how things weren’t great, and trying to pretend my heart wasn’t broken. The world full of broken-hearted people reached back to me, through my computer screen, through Twitter and emails, to tell me my words had helped them. That I had gotten through the mess and the pain and the fear and spoken to them. And they knew that they weren’t alone. That it was OK to grieve.
That meant so much to me, to know that no matter how many books I sold, I’d done what I came to do. I’d represented the people who made it through the rain, like Barry Manilow said, with soaked clothes and faces and smeared mascara, and protected each other with their empathy and shared experiences.
And you know what? Those people who tell me that I saved them by emphasizing their permission to grieve? You saved me too, because you gave me permission to grieve that life I thought I would have, and reconcile it with this new one I have. Here, three years after that morning that didn’t start the story I expected, I find myself in a version I could never have written. I’m back in Baltimore, writing about my city and the lens through which I see the world, for the Baltimore Banner, which didn’t exist in 2020. I have a beautiful home, with my kid, with new writing and opportunities abounding.
Life is different. In many ways, it’s better. And I’m grateful for everyone who whispered my own words back to me. You helped me write a new chapter. And I’ll never forget it.
Three years ago, the release of my first book changed my life - just not like I thought it would
You helped me. It was the first book I was able to read. Now that I think about it...the only book I've read in entirety in two years.
I am so glad we are here now. BLACK WIDOW is a memorable book, and that is and will be true for anyone who's read it in whatever year we find ourselves going forward. You did this work. This world is such a hard place to work—the hardness is why it's "work," *but*—more celebration of your work, please! May it come!