Full disclosure: I was given an advanced reader’s copy of this book from SparkPoint Studio in exchange for an honest review.
Grief memoirs can go many ways. It can help people overcome sadness from the tragedy that occurred. It also creates windows for readers to see what it’s like for those going through a certain type of event. However, some can be sensationalized and can only work for so long. Luckily, today’s book The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir by Maryellen Donovan does the former two. It’s a realistic look at one woman’s journey to overcoming grief after losing her husband in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
As told to Gina Frangello and Emily Rapp Black, The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir is about a 9/11 widow who rediscovers joy and finds love again after the violent loss of her husband. On a sunny Tuesday morning, Maryellen’s husband Steve Cherry lost his life in the 9/11 attacks, rocking her to her core and forever changing her family. Her life and love for Steve was all she could ever hope for. In the wake of his death, she was inconsolable. Ultimately, she decided that she had to stay strong for her two young sons. Even when she was in the grip of hopeless despair, she found solace in deep faith and the belief that, with the support from her family and friends, she can find happiness once again. Her journey to a happy ending had a variety of obstacles like cancer, family conflict, and even more loss, yet she found a way forward despite all of the setbacks she encountered.
For those expecting an account of 9/11 from the eyes of a widow, it’s not that. Maryellen talks a bit about it, especially her thoughts and feelings at the moment she found out about her husband’s death. Instead, the focus is how she moved past the tragedy and began to experience joy and live life again.
With that being said, it will certainly resonate more with people who remember when the 9/11 attacks occurred, especially if they lost someone to that event. My only experience with it was 8-year-old me watching the aftermath of the one plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. My mom immediately turned off the television to prevent me from seeing more of the horrors of that day. I eventually found out what happened.
Getting back to the memoir itself, I felt for Maryellen. She found the love of her life when she was 25 and lost him nearly 10 years later. It could have been a book about how she wallowed in grief and then found happiness, but she balances out the sadness with joy. After Steve dies, she discusses how she met him and how he made her feel in spite of the fact that he was (unhappily) married at the time they met. Once they were wed, he showered a lot of love and affection for her, especially when he recorded a batch of songs that were about her shortly before his passing. This packs a punch once the timeline shifts back to after his death. Even though I knew no one that lost their life in that terrorist attack, I was invested in seeing how things would turn out for her.
The toughest part for me to get through was her account of her second marriage. About a year after Steve’s death, Maryellen marries his stepbrother Russ. They connected soon after 9/11, but it was only hindsight that made her realize that they went too fast, and their relationship wasn’t going to work out. Even though Russ was a nice and friendly man, he was dealing with his own trauma as quietly as possible, and she needed the love that she got from Steve. I wanted her to have the happiness she deserved, but it was clear that it was never going to be from his stepbrother. Even one of her sons remarked years later that she and her second husband felt like roommates. Luckily, she was able to come to terms with Russ, but at the cost of another tragedy.
The best part of this memoir is how much self-awareness and hindsight Donovan possesses. I knew that she came out on the other side because it was clear that she spent plenty of time exploring and reflecting on the actions taken after Steve’s death. There were parts where she compares what happens in a movie to what actually occurred in real life. She uses these kinds of examples when she’s describing her honeymoon with Russ and when her eldest son Brett got married. They say it’s a great time to write down your story when you can look back at it objectively, and that’s what Maryellen did.
The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir by Maryellen Donovan is the kind of grief memoir that people can get invested in even if they barely have any experiences with 9/11. What the author went through was horrible, but I’m glad that she had the support she needed to find joy and happiness again even if it wasn’t entirely obvious. In addition, I love how she’s realistic about what she did, both good and not-so-good, in order to find the will to live again. I would recommend this to anyone who’s lost a loved one and is looking for outlets to express their grief with. The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir is out now, so grab it wherever you get your books.
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Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything 