Good in a Crisis: A Memoir

by Margaret Overton

Honest, hopeful, hilarious€”the smartest, most knowing account of a woman and the calamities of midlife since Nora Ephron€™s wryly humorous Heartburn. During the four years of physician Margaret Overton€™s acrimonious divorce, she dated widely and indiscriminately, determined to find her soul mate and live happily ever after. But then she discovered she had a brain aneurysm. She discovered it at a particularly awkward moment on a date with one of many Mr. Wrongs. Good in a Crisis is Overton's laugh-out-loud funny story of dealing with the most serious of life's loss of life, loss of love, loss of innocence. It's about spirituality, self-delusion, even sheer stupidity. It's written from a physician's perspective, but it's not about medicine, per se; it's about coming of age in adulthood, an effort to help others through the awful events that can cluster in midlife. She does this with laughter and the recognition t

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Audiobook, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2012

Reviews

[Sharon Lippincott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This masterfully written memoir should be required reading for lots of people: anyone thinking about getting married, anyone already married and thinking about getting divorced. Women in the process of divorce. Anyone who may ever get cerebral aneurism. Mothers. Daughters. Friends and relatives of all the above. In other words, this book has something of value for nearly anyone.

Margaret Overton was in mid-life, with a successful career in anesthesiology, two teenage daughters, and a condo she hated when she decided one Memorial Day morning to divorce her husband. The decision did not happen in a vacuum, but it was sudden. In the ensuing four years, through her experience with Match.com, she dated a long succession of creepy losers. They clearly demonstrate the reason why so many mature singles avoid that experience. She had sex with some, was raped by one, and somehow lived to write about it.

When her legal fees topped “several hundred thousand,” after more than four years of endless delays — some instigated by her soon-to-be ex and others by her own need to go to trial because of her inability (as a physician!) to obtain private health insurance — she threw in the towel. “I just want out,” she told her attorney. Sanity was more important than prevailing.

While in the throes of her first post-marital sexual encounter, she suffered a cerebral aneurysm. She’s one of the lucky ones. She recovered, with no discernible damage, but only after more close calls and an experimental procedure. In case that wasn’t enough, her widowed mother experienced a severe health crisis, one of her dearest friends died of brain cancer, and her daughter had a near-fatal skateboarding accident. The list reads like the Book of Job.

That’s the stuff of which the story is woven. The threads that weave it are story and wisdom.

“The process of divorce requires that we develop a narrative, an attempt to sum up the ‘truth’ of the marriage and its dissolution, as if things might be put straight in some cosmic manner with enough words, delivered just so, to enough people, with just the right emphasis.”

This book is that narrative, that putting of words in just the right order, with just the right emphasis, and quite remarkably, she does it with such deftness and gently self-effacing humor that I was alternately laughing and fuming at the horror and injustice of it all. Her story structure is solidly crafted, with key elements, like her departed friend Paul, scattered artfully throughout the narrative, deepening the insight ever so gradually, keeping the slope climbable without dismounting from your bike. She embellishes the structure with stunningly vivid descriptions that pasted whole paragraphs permanently in mind.

This is not a book filled with epiphanies, nor is it filled with step-by-step guidelines for surviving divorce or medical emergencies. It is a book filled with evolving wisdom and offering deep compassion and hope. Margaret Overton took the advice she quotes at the outset. She has not wasted the opportunities offered by a good crisis. She surmounted her obstacles and emerged with equanimity. In this volume, she holds out a strong hand of courage to lead others along the path she has trodden, graciously allowing them to learn whatever they may from her experience.

The author bio states that this is Overton’s first book. I look forward to her next.


This review was originally published at StoryCircleBookReviews: http://snipurl.com/221vz0r

[CanadianReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good in a Crisis is ostensibly an account of the five or six turbulent years that followed physician Margaret Overton’s decision to divorce a seemingly boorish and philandering surgeon husband of twenty years. “The divorce,” writes Overton, “precipitated a series of midlife events that happened to someone who’d always assumed she was safe.” Many of the events life simply threw at her—her own urgent medical issue (two serious episodes with a potentially fatal cerebral aneurysm), an aging mother’s and college-aged daughter’s serious accidents, the sudden death of beloved fellow anesthesiologist friend, and the diagnosis of fatal brain cancer in another. In all the above, Overton lived up to her memoir’s title. In terms of her own psychological crisis, however, not so much. One might even argue that her intemperate, throw-all-caution-to-the-wind foray into the world of post-divorce dating was a crisis of the author's own making. And it is that crisis, rather than all the others listed above, that is the main subject of her memoir.

Good in a Crisis regales the reader with details of innumerable dates with creeps, oddballs, and losers, most of whom have only one thing on their minds. Safety may indeed be an illusion, as Overton avers, but surely prudence helps us all avoid at least some unsafe situations, and I know few people as "clueless" as Overton admits she was. This is not to say she’s an unlikable or unappealing narrator. On the one hand, I want to give her credit for being so honest about her foibles and gaffes. On the other, though, I admit to genuine worry about the possible professional consequences of publicly exposing such astonishingly poor judgment in personal matters. Aspects of her disastrous dinner dates and coffee shop meetings with wearers of make-up, those showing bizarre preferences for bilious green, possessors of brown teeth and slug-like or impaling tongues provide some humour, but the stories wear on you after a while. (I acknowledge that many readers may be more entertained by her adventures in dating than I was.) However, Overton's description of her “non-relationship” with a lay-about hoarder, her account of being showered by a profusely perspiring date during a decidedly non-erotic escapade, and, finally, her description of date rape in her own apartment gave me genuine pause.

Early on in the book, Overton writes—perhaps not as jokingly as I initially thought--that those in the throes of a divorce are wounded, crazy, and hurtful. They should be identified to the public with neon signs flashing “Buyer Beware” above their heads, she says. If insanity is, as Albert Einstein said, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and if her account of compulsive and indiscriminate dating is to be believed, the author could be a textbook case to illustrate Einstein's point.

When it comes to memoir, we are primed to expect by book's end the articulation of a lesson learned, a meditation on the deeper meaning of an event or an episode. Good in a Crisis doesn’t deliver one. Or maybe what it delivers is an unintended one. “What’s the truth?” Overton asks about divorce early on in her book. “The truth is what happened between you and him or her, over the years, and what didn’t happen. The truth is what you said and didn’t say, how much you tried, how you changed, and whether you were lucky....In the end, who cares about the truth? You still end up divorced.” Yes, I would add, divorced you may be, but isn’t uncovering the truth of your own role in that divorce a worthy goal?

In the final pages, Overton tells us she eventually stopped “dating” entirely; she actually gave up on the internet! Hardly a breath later, though, she reveals that she still occasionally convinces herself that her friends are right and it’s the only way for a middle-aged woman to meet a man. She’ll sign up, pay for three months and quit after a day or two. Her quest to understand her “journey”, she goes on to say, has prompted her to change therapists, opting for a man, a kind of “surrogate guy” who might help her comprehend--not herself, as one would so dearly hope for her--but “how men think”. It may be a truism that life can change in a heart beat, but this memoir is a telling illustration of how the essential character of a person living that life may not. Presented with opportunities to learn lessons, gain wisdom, improve one’s judgment, people do not always take them. Good in a Crisis left me musing about how much personal agency you really have if you believe, as Overton says she does, in luck. Additionally, how much can you learn if you have little propensity for self-examination, if you don’t understand your own role in at least some of the life crises you find yourself in, or can’t be alone with yourself long enough to try to find out?

I thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free pre-publication copy of this book for review.

[Rehan Abd Jamil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The power of solitude. Don't ever underestimate it.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had read about this somewhere and I think it was billed as compelling and funny. It WAS compelling, but not really funny. There are plenty of stories of bad dates in this book, but I didn't find them particularly funny--more painful. I also had a hard time relating to her compulsive dating. In fairness, I'm sure that being with your husband from age 21 until middle age (Overton) gives you a different take on dating and being single than dating someone seriously in college and then being single until your early thirties (me), but I couldn't understand why she kept going out with these men. Would being single have been so bad? At least for a few years? She had children, a career, and it didn't seem as if her marriage had given her companionship even, much less true love, for many years before the ugly divorce. The writing in this memoir is better than serviceable but nothing spectacular. Mostly, as a Chicagoland resident, I was curious about which Jesuit Catholic community she found, which she mentioned fleetingly. I certainly admired the author for living through so many tragic events and having the perspicacity and courage to keep going and to write about them, and this was a quick and interesting read, albeit often depressing and frustrating. (Near the end, when I read the name of a new male acquaintance, I felt like yelling, "Nooooooooo!") I don't recommend this one.

[Jean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Someone must have suggested to this author that it would be a great idea if she wrote a book compilation of all her horrendous dates via Match.com. There's not much else to this book. She and her husband are both wealthy doctors who divorce after 20 years of marriage. In between biking trips through France and Napa Valley to find herself, she compulsively dates men she meets on the Internet. All the men are liars just like her ex-husband, and one even rapes her. Why she would want to share these details with the public, let alone with her two grown daughters, is beyone me. Oh, and to lend her story gravitas, she did have near death experience with a brain annuerysm during this time.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not the memoir of a well-educated professional woman. It's a compliation of dating horror stories that do not reflect well on Dr Overton's judgement. Perhaps they are meant to be funny but for me, the "ick" quotient was just too high. It's a shame because Dr Overton seems to have a full and interesting life as a doctor and single mother.

[Olwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disliked the character Margaret - she is so limp - listened to it as an ebook and the narrators accent was a huge put off. Margaret and her string of men were particularly boring. Drifted off through parts of the book.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book less than 1 star. This memoir is poorly written, has no real conclusive ending, and drags on forever about her horrible dating adventures. She mentions twice a page that she is a doctor and when other people in the book reference her they call her Doctor, not just Margaret. It was very hard to relate to someone who goes on multiple biking trips to Europe and California all the while balancing her busy life as a doctor and low self-esteemed pity party of her horrible choices in dating. Spoiler, it was horrifying that she got raped but for being a "smart" doctor, she should have reported it.
It's like she wrote this book as a messy diary from counseling and then got it published to add to her resume and say, "Not only am I a doctor, but I am a doctor who wrote a book."
I throw my hands up in disgust and at the same time throw this book in the trash.

[Blythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one needs a trigger warning for rape. At the 80% point the author nonchalantly describes a date rape she endured at nearly 50 years old.

Otherwise this was an unremarkable read and I don't really understand how it was published, or why I listened to the whole thing.

[Meg Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite parts of this book were the dating scenes and medical reflections. I liked the humour in the writing and appreciated the authors musings about divorce. I think for a story so much about relationships I was dissatisfied by the ending being up in the air on the relationship front. Clearly it is the nature of memoirs that they don’t neatly tie up, but it would have been more powerful if there was a bit more to hold onto at the end.

It’s a testament to Overton’s writing that I was desperate for updates on her life when I finished reading.

[Eliza Arakelyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Կան գրքեր, որ հայտնվում են իմ կյանքում ճիշտ պահին ու ճիշտ տեղում։ Շատ-շատ ինձ անհանգստացնող հարցերի պատասխանները գտա։ Հասկացա, որ բազմաթիվ հարցերում ես մենակ չեմ ու էդ ինձ պետք էր։ Տպագրված եմ։

[Cyndy Aleo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I jumped at the chance to obtain an advance reader copy of Margaret Overton's Good in a Crisis: A Memoir via NetGalley; as a divorce survivor myself, the opportunity to read someone else's version of how it goes, especially when the book is being compared to Nora Ephron's Heartburn, was a must-read.

Good in a Crisis: A Memoir starts out as a compelling read; Overton has a witty voice that's easy to read, and her ability to laugh in the face of just about any embarrassing event, including the discovery of the aneurysm that followed her separation from her husband, is to be envied. Overton is blunt and succinct, and usually able to sum up in one sentence what many of us discover during a divorce: There are no winners, only bigger jerks. Her tales of online dating and friend fix-ups had me near tears from laughing so hard, because they were so familiar an experience to those friends have gone through.

About halfway through, however, Good in a Crisis: A Memoir suddenly becomes an entirely different book. Where it began as what felt like witty banter among friends, it becomes, for the second half, a far more serious and reflective book, focusing on death and sorrow and depression. The second half was much harder to read, possibly because it felt like a completely different book than the one I'd thought I was reading. It was still good, and still had much to say about life and loss, and rated separately, I'd probably have given it a four-star rating, but the jarring transition from the first half to the second was a difficult one to make. It may have been a different read for me had I known what to expect going in, but as it was, I was somewhat disappointed in the second half, which seemed to drag.

Overall, it was still a very worthwhile read, but at this point in my life, I'd have preferred to read more of the first half and less of the second.

This review originally published at Epinions: http://www.epinions.com/review/Margar...

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret Overton reads her own memoir about her post-divorce years which involve a lot of miserable dates and a brain aneurysm that didn't kill her. To really appreciate the humor in this book, it helps to be older. Overton stayed in a bad marriage for many years, mostly from inertia. It's largely easier to retain the status quo and her husband, a doctor like Overton though in a different specialty, was a real piece of work. It took Overton the better part of a decade to learn who she was. She went on a dating binge because she thought that she would find someone to replace her husband without first asking the question whether that was what she needed. Although she didn't delve deeply into it, it lends itself to discussion of gender roles and though Overton is a doctor, she still had the traditional role of raising the children and seeing to the house. You're supposed to be married, aren't you? Some of her experiences were hilarious, others very sad, but in many ways, also very typical for woman of a certain age and status who expected to have life unfold in a certain order. The book isn't wonderful but the process of Overton finding herself is one that most of us can relate to on some level. She doesn't back down from the responsibility of her mistakes but neither does she take extra responsibility for things that happened to her that were not her fault. Her honesty and frankness was refreshing.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Couldn't decide between 2 and 3 stars. This memoir about a woman having an incredible string of bad luck in middle age and her attempts to survive and move on with life starts off very engaging and moves quickly. The author is funny, honest, and engaging, and if you're a certain age and have started having health scares, seen parents decline or die, and seen friends and families shattered by divorce, you will be able to relate. But the story meanders and loses steam as she details a string of bad dates and bad relationships after her divorce. You'd think she'd have gotten a bit smarter more quickly realizing that most of the men she meets on Match.com are odd or damaged in some way, and are generally looking for one thing, even when they say they aren't--sex. The ending seems a bit abrupt and pat--as though she couldn't figure out how to end it (possibly meaning her story isn't quite finished and she should have waited a while before publishing this? or that she herself doesn't know quite what to say about what she's learned, how she's grown,etc.) and tacked on a few short paragraphs.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Good in a Crisis"? More like "Codependent Woman Horror Stories" or "Bad Stuff Keeps Happening". Big points for abject honesty and she does tell a tale about her health insurance that will utterly curl your hair. But, this was a rough read.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but I kind of wondered how it got published. It was sort of like reading someone's rambling, slightly disjointed diary entries (albeit clever, well-written ones). But do divorce & other random events of bad fortune need to be published and made into a book? Not necessarily. I like a memoir that goes well beyond everyday disappointments & into the truly jaw-dropping.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love reading about anyones journey. Grateful for Overton to share hers. My favorite 2 pages were the ones on happiness theory and one's happiness set point. It was worth it to read it...even just for that.

[Freaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I didn't know what to expect, a memoir sure, but what kind of memoir really? Well, I connected to the autor in some situations and in others I just got pissed of. Who wouldn't? Her choices were based on stupidity. andShe did not know the world around her, the people and even herself, but we can see her progressing, like her years she seems to understand what life can do, how cruel it can be... How we lose people easily and how they never really leave us, how some scars are deeper than we think they truly are. Our decisions can led us to bad situations, because we never truly know someone, we do not even know ourselfs.
What I can say is, we can learn through other's peoples lives. If you wish to learn, to laugh and to feel frustated like I did, this book is for you.

[Katy Gawne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I randomly pulled this off the shelf at the library when I was looking for a different memoir. I like a good crisis with some dark humor, which is what the jacket made me think I was getting. It was false advertising. This is primarily a documentation of the authors re-entry into the dating world after divorce and all the really terrible men she met. She had some truly horrible life events too, but those seemed secondary. I think that a woman who is freshly single after a serious relationship might resonate with this book but it was mostly a miss for me.

[Ilynn Virgobiru · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm supposed to gain a lesson from reading this...but I do not. There are a lot of things that I feel is so superficial or shallow. Is this how American women see others?

I guess being different culturally permits me to think that way. The part I really like is the ending. The way it conclude and the way the character reflects back on her life is good.

But everything before is not what I expected. A lot of repetition and unnecessary scenes.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many memoirs out there that have that tinge of self servitude. I've read a lot of memoirs, listened to many as audiobooks. This is among my favorites. And it's not even a famous person!

Margaret Overton tells such an interesting story. Her life isn't perfect, and she's completely honest about it. There was ugliness and humor. The book was simply delightful.

Read it.

[Emma Steel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this from the library as an audio book. Perhaps that’s why I only give 3 and not 4 stars as I just couldn’t warm to her voice. Having said that, an interesting, sad, funny, scary (in parts) and remarkably honest (I think) memoir. Wish I could give it that fourth star ...

[Ann Yarema · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A woman tackles divorce, bad dating experiences and her life threatening health issues and those of her family/friends.

[Jenny J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great midlife memoir with a real life ending.

[Glenn Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scary, On line dating is tough for everyone. Author's experience has to be as bad as it gets.

[S S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Realistic, truthful and reflective. Divorce needs a proper grieving process. It also highlights the fact that life needs a revamped manual

[Liv · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know who Margaret Overton is, but I love her. She has suffered so much and still managed to write a funny and touching memoir that I really enjoyed reading. I hope she's doing better.

[Lenka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good writing with great sense of humour but for me just a lot of pessimistic stuff for one person to survive within just a few years.

[Nyapiche Omune · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would take the utmost vulnerability to share such deep details of my life. However, the book is very real and allows one to think practically about life / marriage