Jill Bialosky, the poet behind the âtender, absorbing, and deeply moving memoirâ (Entertainment Weekly) History of a Suicide, returns with a lyrical portrait of her motherâs life, told in reverse order from burial to birth.
When Iris Yvonne Bialosky died in an assisted care facility on March 29, 2020, it unleashed a torrent of emotions in her daughter, Jill Bialosky. Grief, of course, but also guilt, confusion, and doubt, all of which were compounded by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic which made it impossible for Jill to be with her mother as she was dying and to attend her motherâs funeral.
Now, with a poetâs eye for detail and a novelistâs flair for storytelling, Jill presents a profoundly moving elegy unlike any other. Starting with her motherâs end and the physical/cognitive decline that led her to a care home, The End Is the Beginning explores Irisâs battle with depression, the tragedy of a daughterâs suicide, a failed second marriage, the death of her beloved first husband only five years into their young marriage, her joyful teenage years, and the trauma of losing her own mother at just eight years old. Compounding her challenges of raising four daughters without a livelihood or partner, Irisâs life coincided with an age of unstoppable social change and reinvention, when the roles of wife and mother she was raised to inhabit ceased to be the guarantors of stability and happiness.
As we see Iris become younger and younger, we learn how we are all the sum of our experiences. Iris becomes a multi-dimensional, fascinating woman. We come to understand her difficulties and shortcomings, her neediness and her generosity, her pride and her despair. The End Is the Beginning is not just a family memoir, it is a brave and compassionate celebration of a womanâs life and death and a window into a daughterâs inextricable bond to her mother.