My Lovely Wife

Goodreads Description

A heart-wrenching, yet hopeful, memoir of a young marriage that is redefined by mental illness and affirms the power of love. Mark and Giulia’s life together began as a storybook romance. They fell in love at eighteen, married at twenty-four, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was twenty-seven, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well-adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that her loved ones were not safe. Eventually, Giulia fully recovered, and the couple had a son. But, soon after Jonas was born, Giulia had another breakdown, and then a third a few years after that. Pushed to the edge of the abyss, everything the couple had once taken for granted was upended. A story of the fragility of the mind, and the tenacity of the human spirit, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is, above all, a love story that raises profound questions: How do we care for the people we love? What and who do we live for? Breathtaking in its candor, radiant with compassion, and written with dazzling lyricism, Lukach’s is an intensely personal odyssey through the harrowing years of his wife’s mental illness, anchored by an abiding devotion to family that will affirm readers’ faith in the power of love.

My Review

I found this one to be a really fascinating, sad, eye-opening memoir. I've always had a little bit of a fascination with mental illness and how people cope with it in their lives, if they ever do.

This book is ultimately both a memoir and an autobiography. In the book, the author talks about his relationship with his wife, how he coped with his wife's sudden onset of mental illness and the struggles that he went through. This is the memoir part. But then the author also focuses on his wife, how she coped, what the diagnosis did to her and how she acted and reacted. That is the autobiography part.

Although I felt extremely sorry for Giulia and her bipolar diagnosis, which must have been devastating, the person that I felt most sorry for when reading this true account, was Giulia's husband and the author of this book, Mark. I cannot even vaguely begin to imagine what it must be like to see the person that you love crumbling before your eyes. Giulia become unloving, rude, withdrawn, selfish and all these things were aimed at her husband Mark, who was just trying to remain a rock and a constant support. And of course I realize that Giulia didn't have any control over her emotions, or over how she treated Mark, but I couldn't help feel incredibly sorry for him and a little bit irritated with her.

I must also mention at this stage, that I found this account to be incredibly honest, and I must applaud Giulia for this as I'm sure she needed to agree to Mark including some of the scenes that he included in the book. For example, there is a scene where Giulia has been released from hospital and she is back at home and Mark asks her to do the dishes after dinner. She is in her room, lying in bed and says no, she doesn't want to do them and he must do them. It's a scene that got my blood boiling because Mark had basically given up his whole life for months and months, he had done everything for Giulia and had looked after her constantly, and she couldn't even do the dishes! This is just one example of a small scene that could have been left out of the book, but wasn't. It's such a normal, every day thing, but yet it was included in the book and it was honest and brutal.

Overall, this was a really great read. It's always difficult to rate a memoir / autobiography because it's always difficult to rate someone's real life experiences. I do try and remember that the pacing will be different to a fiction novel, as will the gripping nature of the read. But this one was great. It was incredibly interesting and eye-opening, it was sad but also hopeful. The love that Mark shows for Giulia is incredible and amazing. My personal feeling is that I'm not quite as confident that Giulia shows the same depth of love for Mark, but that's just my personal feeling.

This is a wonderful memoir that I'm sure many people will "enjoy" (it's difficult to say enjoy due to the nature of the read). I'm sure that many of you will find something in this read to lift your spirits. I know that I did.

And here's wishing all the best to both Mark and Giulia, for their life together.

My Rating: * * * *

Publication Date: August 2017 (South Africa)

Genre: Memoir

Format: Trade Paperback

Source: Review copy received from the publisher. Many thanks to author, Mark Lukach and Pan Macmillan SA for my copy. It was my pleasure to read and review this title.