Over the last couple of years, there have only been a handful of books that I’ve been compelled to read immediately and in one sitting, but my wife said you may want to marry me: a memoir by Jason B. Rosenthal, is one of them. You probably know the story. The story of AKR’s letter in the Modern Love column in The New York Times. I’m absolutely not a crier, per se, but I can never make it through that letter without welling up. I know I often talk about books without really talking about them, and this will be no exception! But I love Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s books Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. If you’ve read them, you undoubtedly love them, too. And if you haven’t I don’t want to spoil them for you because they are under the category “books that delight and uplift.”

I’ve mentioned AKR in a couple of previous posts, here and here. Perhaps in other posts, too, though I can’t seem to find them at the moment.

I want to talk about Jason Rosenthal’s book, but first I’m going to drop in some classic AKR quotations:

“Just look at us, all of us, quietly doing our thing and trying to matter. The earnestness is inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.”

“On a 4/29 at 4:29pm, text someone I love you. This is what I would like for my birthday each year.”

“I cannot stress this enough: One second your toast is fine, golden brown; the next second it is black.”

I could go on, but as I said, don’t want to spoil the fun for you.

At the beginning of her E of an OL, she states that she was born in 1966 (me, too, fun fact), and that her first word was: more. And so the sculpture in her honour in Lincoln Park in Chicago is perfect. (If you read more about her you will also find out why it’s a yellow umbrella).

Okay, so the book by Jason B. Rosenthal. I guess many of us have been wanting more AKR. And in a certain way I’m pretty sure she knew that a book by her husband would have to come out of her piece in The Times. Eventually. That’s the way the world generally works. If you have read her books (and know how full they are of fun and beauty and keen noticing and oh a ton of other grand and great and silly stuff), and not just the famous letter, then you know that you’re in good hands with JBR’s book. Like you just know he’s not gonna f*ck it up. And he doesn’t. Even if you’d just read the letter, you’d probably know that. So yah, one night I just sat on the couch and read his book cover to cover. I thought it would make me weep and well up like reading the letter always makes me, and I did a tiny bit at one point, but mainly I was just happy. He says just enough, and not too much.

The writing is not at all like Amy’s writing (why would it be?) It reads a bit as a letter to his kids (which I personally love). He’s been through the grief wringer and he’s so gently honest about it all. I don’t know how intentional, or if it’s just exactly who he is (yes I’d bet), but the tone has precisely the right amount of earnestness, despair, good breathing, admiration, love, charmingness, goodness, and the feeling of it all having been a fucking rug pulled out from under life in a whirlwind but now settling into an equilibrium kind of deal. I sort of felt that he put all the kindness he’d experienced because of and through Amy and their relationship, and all the kindness and gentleness he received after her death, into this book with care for its reader. And it comes at a time when it feels quite nice to be cared for by someone who gets love so deeply and who has so much integrity. It’s not at all a depressing read though it maybe sounds strange to say I was uplifted by it? The ending helps, of course. And perhaps it was just being reminded that to live as Amy did, with all your heart, means something. Means a lot. Okay right means everything.

So that’s my hot take which would never be published in a newspaper but hey that’s why we have blogs right?

Undoubtedly (?) it’s an accident of timing that my wife said you may want to marry me came exactly when I was ready for a bit of closure on AKR. I bet it hits a lot of her fans the same way. And isn’t it amazing that JBR was up for giving us that? Thanks Jason. I hope you always want more. I hope we all do.

Anyway, Ps. it’s dorky but I really wish AKR could have read my book Everything Affects Everyone. I think she would have liked the questionnaire. (This thought of mine filed under “Impossible Things.”) I’m wondering, though, if you’ve read my EAE, did you fill it out?

February 3, 2022