Losing Susan

Starred review from May 9, 2016
In this theologically grounded memoir, Episcopal priest and scholar Austin (Up With Authority) shares the heartbreaking story of his wife’s brain cancer and its horrible aftermath. Raw and honest, Austin forces the reader to confront what caring for a terminally ill loved one means—the pain, the exhaustion, the guilt, the joy. “It is a joy that wraps around both of us and lifts us up, in the midst of such a mundane human thing as caring for one another’s corporeality—lifts us up to the heights, to the heart of joy.” Throughout his wife’s illness, Austin also wrestles with God’s role in suffering and death. He contends that God is strange and sometimes awful, that God is love, that God gives generously but also brutally takes things away, and that God intends for each of us to die. Most importantly, he asserts that God is always present, even in our most painful moments. This book will warm readers’ hearts and bring them to tears. It is a story of what it really means to promise “for better or for worse” and a must for anyone who has labored along with a loved one through their suffering.