Year of the Comets: A Journey from Sadness to the Stars

by Jan Deblieu

On the clearest nights, in the darkest rural areas, it's possible to see as many as 2,000 stars. On what kind of scaffolding are they hung?

Every moment thousands of neurons fire in our brains, giving rise to our thoughts and emotions. Is it possible for us to map and understand the complex internal cosmos that makes us who we are?

These two disparate questions became of immense importance to award-winning writer Jan DeBlieu in the spring of 1996, with the appearance of the Comet Hyakutake, the first of two great comets to visit Earth within a year. That spring, her husband, Jeff, began a long slide into a clinical depression. One night, unable to sleep, she stepped outside and found herself face-to-face with Hyakutake. Her encounter with Hyakutake sparked a desire to learn all she could about the stars, comets, and the makeup of the universe.

Through her family's story, DeBlieu describes the pain of watching her husband suffer, as well as his healing—indeed, their healing as a couple. She brings the Year of the Comets full circle with the appearance of Hale-Bopp in 1997, which coincided with Jeff's recovery.

Genres: Biography

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 10, 2005

About the author

Jan DeBlieu is an American writer whose work often focuses on how people are shaped by the landscapes in which they live. Her own writing has been influenced by her adopted home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Reviews

[Beth Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan Deblieu is a master of combining nonfiction with personal essay and this book is one of my favorites. As her husband begins a devastating slide into depression, Deblieu looks to the heavens. What she finds there are two comets and whole lot of wonder.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who was experiencing my own spiraling depression after the loss of a loved one, this was a book I definitely needed.