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Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives
Six marriages, six heartbreaks, one shared beginning.
In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world. In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas. Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.
Meet the Saturday Night ringleader Becky, an unsentimental journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring self-made entrepreneur whose husband was killed in a sporting accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed suicide.
The women meet once a month, and over the course of a year, they strike out on ever more far-flung adventures, learning to live past the worst thing they thought could happen. They share emotional peaks and valleys – dating, parenting, moving, finding meaningful work, and reinventing themselves – while turning traditional thinking about loss and recovery upside down. Through it all runs the story of Aikman's own journey through grief and her love affair with a man who tempts her to marry again. In a transporting story of what friends can achieve when they hold each other up, Saturday Night Widows is a rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize.
In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world. In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas. Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.
Meet the Saturday Night ringleader Becky, an unsentimental journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring self-made entrepreneur whose husband was killed in a sporting accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed suicide.
The women meet once a month, and over the course of a year, they strike out on ever more far-flung adventures, learning to live past the worst thing they thought could happen. They share emotional peaks and valleys – dating, parenting, moving, finding meaningful work, and reinventing themselves – while turning traditional thinking about loss and recovery upside down. Through it all runs the story of Aikman's own journey through grief and her love affair with a man who tempts her to marry again. In a transporting story of what friends can achieve when they hold each other up, Saturday Night Widows is a rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 22, 2013
486 people are currently reading
3173 people want to read
About the author
Becky Aikman
5 books80 followersAuthor of Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge. She also wrote Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives. Becky was a journalist for Business Week and Newsday. She lives in Brooklyn.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 441 reviews
August 27, 2013
I wanted to like this book, and at times I did like this book. But there were other times when I thought the author was a little too self serving. She kept reminding readers that she was part of the group as an observer, but most of what she observed was her own life.
As a writer I admire writers who are smart enough to come up with an idea from a situation in their own life (in this case being a widow) and grab a book deal from it and then have the actual experience. As a reader, I hate it because it seems so pre-planned. I give serious props to the other widows brought together and revealed so much of their life stories while someone was recording the entire gathering. I also admire these women for staying friends with Becky afterward because she is not kind to some of the widows, particularly Marcia.
I read some GoodRead comments after I finished the book, and two points popped up a few times, points that came to my mind often as I read the book. One was the wealth of these women to take these adventures. Only one widow struggled financially -- but at the same time she had to take in a border to help her pay her mortgage/rent, she was able to go on a trip to Morocco? These weren't ordinary women. These were women with some serious connections and they all seemed to be married to high-powered lawyers (except Becky). In my own observations, I noted a large age gap between the majority of the widows and their spouses. Obviously, these women were chosen to fit into Becky's book plan, but there were a lot of issues that widows face that have nothing to do with sex that were never addressed.
The other point brought up in the comments was the lack of spirituality. Perhaps it wasn't important to this particular group of women -- as a group they seemed very materialistic to me, or maybe that was the author's voice coming out. I would have been interested in hearing how the death of their husbands affected their belief systems, as opposed to their constant concerns about sex.
Yet, as I read the book, I kept thinking of The World's Greatest Book Group. They were brought together because I wanted a book group, and I invited my friends who really didn't know each other beyond periodic parties at my house. Over 8 years, I watched how we've grown as a group, how everyone has become friendly outside of the group, how we've stuck by each other in tragedy and in good times. That's the real point of Saturday Night Widows -- that they were widows was what brought them together, but in the end it was discovering how freeing it is to be with a group of women on a regular basis and how, when you least expect it, they become your life line.
As a writer I admire writers who are smart enough to come up with an idea from a situation in their own life (in this case being a widow) and grab a book deal from it and then have the actual experience. As a reader, I hate it because it seems so pre-planned. I give serious props to the other widows brought together and revealed so much of their life stories while someone was recording the entire gathering. I also admire these women for staying friends with Becky afterward because she is not kind to some of the widows, particularly Marcia.
I read some GoodRead comments after I finished the book, and two points popped up a few times, points that came to my mind often as I read the book. One was the wealth of these women to take these adventures. Only one widow struggled financially -- but at the same time she had to take in a border to help her pay her mortgage/rent, she was able to go on a trip to Morocco? These weren't ordinary women. These were women with some serious connections and they all seemed to be married to high-powered lawyers (except Becky). In my own observations, I noted a large age gap between the majority of the widows and their spouses. Obviously, these women were chosen to fit into Becky's book plan, but there were a lot of issues that widows face that have nothing to do with sex that were never addressed.
The other point brought up in the comments was the lack of spirituality. Perhaps it wasn't important to this particular group of women -- as a group they seemed very materialistic to me, or maybe that was the author's voice coming out. I would have been interested in hearing how the death of their husbands affected their belief systems, as opposed to their constant concerns about sex.
Yet, as I read the book, I kept thinking of The World's Greatest Book Group. They were brought together because I wanted a book group, and I invited my friends who really didn't know each other beyond periodic parties at my house. Over 8 years, I watched how we've grown as a group, how everyone has become friendly outside of the group, how we've stuck by each other in tragedy and in good times. That's the real point of Saturday Night Widows -- that they were widows was what brought them together, but in the end it was discovering how freeing it is to be with a group of women on a regular basis and how, when you least expect it, they become your life line.
January 6, 2013
This book sounded more interesting than it really was. It’s a bit awful to say that about a memoir, but it’s one of those books that has been done over and over until it loses meaning.
It started out with potential. The writing was fresh and at least the first chapter is interesting, bringing something new to the table. The idea of a woman wanting to revolutionize the way we look at loss and death and widowhood definitely caught my attention. The problems started a bit later, when the writer introduces the women who will become part of her life as a widow. I just couldn’t get a real sense of who they were, or who Becki was, actually. The personalities get lost in the back and forth shuffle between telling us about the husband’s deaths. It felt like the only thing that defined these women were their husbands, which is exactly the opposite of what the author is trying to achieve.
The book was too slow and too fast at the same time, if that makes sense. The author never really took the time to elaborate on too much, not even in the climactic bit of the book where the women go on a trip to Morocco together. And then other times, she repeated the same sentiment over and over, so that the pages ground to a halt.
I’m sure there’s an audience for this kind of memoir, but it wasn’t nearly as deep for me as I wanted it to be. I’d pass on this one and go read something with a bit more meat.
It started out with potential. The writing was fresh and at least the first chapter is interesting, bringing something new to the table. The idea of a woman wanting to revolutionize the way we look at loss and death and widowhood definitely caught my attention. The problems started a bit later, when the writer introduces the women who will become part of her life as a widow. I just couldn’t get a real sense of who they were, or who Becki was, actually. The personalities get lost in the back and forth shuffle between telling us about the husband’s deaths. It felt like the only thing that defined these women were their husbands, which is exactly the opposite of what the author is trying to achieve.
The book was too slow and too fast at the same time, if that makes sense. The author never really took the time to elaborate on too much, not even in the climactic bit of the book where the women go on a trip to Morocco together. And then other times, she repeated the same sentiment over and over, so that the pages ground to a halt.
I’m sure there’s an audience for this kind of memoir, but it wasn’t nearly as deep for me as I wanted it to be. I’d pass on this one and go read something with a bit more meat.
September 21, 2012
...one of them is a beautiful series of Chinese watercolours of lotus blossoms. She chose them because they bloom even in the mud.
The above is a quote from, and an excellent representation of Saturday Night Widows. When I first heard of it, I knew I had to read it, and I'm so glad I did, because it is without a doubt the sweetest and most poignant book I've read in a long time.
Becky Aikman lost her husband to cancer and afterwards had to reinvent herself as "the dreaded W-word"... a widow. Only in her forties she was nowhere near ready for the stigma of being a widow. She had lost her husband far too early, but even in her grief, she knew that she wasn't ready to repeat Queen Victoria and dress all in black and never live again. When this attitude got her kicked out of a traditional grief group (something that still shocks me!), she decided to start her own. Only this wasn't to be a grief group, but a support group.
Thus starts the group that will come to be known as the Lotus Blossoms. Six women who couldn't be more different, and whose only connection is that they all lost their husbands at far too young an age, but who possibly because of those differences come to be a safe space for each other. Once a month they get together - not to revel in their pain, but to try out new experiences, to draw on each others' wisdom and to just have fun!
Saturday Night Widows is a book of true friendship and hope. It tells of how to move on without fear, "because the worst thing has already happened". Most importantly, it made me feel like I really knew these women, and I felt with them in their ups and downs. I had feared that reading about a group of widows might be depressing, or that I wouldn't be able to relate to them, fortunately not being in their shoes, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Becky (I feel I know her well enough to be on first name basis with her) brings the reader into their world and understands that sharing sadness only becomes depressing if you let it. Besides, this isn't a book about loss - it's a book about picking yourself up again afterwards and daring to live again. It did made me cry, but they were tears of poignancy rather than of grief.
It's an amazing book that I would recommend to any women... not just widows.
October 6, 2012
I was able to read Saturday Night Widows as an uncorrected Advanced Reader Proof. It's normally not the kind of book that I read, but I was immediately caught by the back cover blurb. I haven't lost my husband, we are still happily married, and I am at least (if not more than) half the age of the women featured in this book.
The idea of this memoir is that it revolves around six women, who are "recently" widowed (within the last 5 years) and are considered "young" widows (thirty to fifty-six). The author, having experienced an awful widows-support group much like round circle AA meetings, decided to strike out on her own. She interviewed scientists and psychologists and decided to create her own widows-support group: one that focused on living life to the fullest after the loss of a spouse rather than cocooning yourself in the grief that follows such a traumatic death.
SNW spans the course of a year, where once a month the women meet and do something they might not normally do for a number of reasons, ending with a climatic and inspiring international trip. It's a book that makes the reader consider how they would handle the death of a spouse, and how they would continue their lives after the fact. What I found most interesting was watching these women rebuild both themselves and their families. How they dealt with the guilt of moving on when a loved one can't. Full of tear-jerking stories and side-splitting adventures, it's worth a read even if, like me, you're not the target audience.
The idea of this memoir is that it revolves around six women, who are "recently" widowed (within the last 5 years) and are considered "young" widows (thirty to fifty-six). The author, having experienced an awful widows-support group much like round circle AA meetings, decided to strike out on her own. She interviewed scientists and psychologists and decided to create her own widows-support group: one that focused on living life to the fullest after the loss of a spouse rather than cocooning yourself in the grief that follows such a traumatic death.
SNW spans the course of a year, where once a month the women meet and do something they might not normally do for a number of reasons, ending with a climatic and inspiring international trip. It's a book that makes the reader consider how they would handle the death of a spouse, and how they would continue their lives after the fact. What I found most interesting was watching these women rebuild both themselves and their families. How they dealt with the guilt of moving on when a loved one can't. Full of tear-jerking stories and side-splitting adventures, it's worth a read even if, like me, you're not the target audience.
January 9, 2013
I read this book much too soon in my widowhood, probably about 6 weeks out. This is not for the woman who is still dealing with insurance companies, hospitals and various aspects of being newly widowed. This is for the woman who is further down the road and is trying to figure out what comes next in her life.
The title says "...Adventures of Six Friends..." and that's a bit of a falsehood. None of these women knew each other prior to M'S Aikman's decision to research "young widows" and form a support group. (At this time, M's Aikman had been remarried for a year.) All the women were hand picked by M's Aikman to be a part of her group. The women have 2 things in common - they are widowed and financially secure. No one is (still) arguing with insurance companies or hospitals regarding payments. I am not anywhere near this particular place.
My advice - if you are further down the widowhood road than I am, you might find this book interesting. I might have found it a better fit for me if I read it late 2013 instead of late 2012. If you are newly widowed, you might want to skip this book.
The title says "...Adventures of Six Friends..." and that's a bit of a falsehood. None of these women knew each other prior to M'S Aikman's decision to research "young widows" and form a support group. (At this time, M's Aikman had been remarried for a year.) All the women were hand picked by M's Aikman to be a part of her group. The women have 2 things in common - they are widowed and financially secure. No one is (still) arguing with insurance companies or hospitals regarding payments. I am not anywhere near this particular place.
My advice - if you are further down the widowhood road than I am, you might find this book interesting. I might have found it a better fit for me if I read it late 2013 instead of late 2012. If you are newly widowed, you might want to skip this book.
November 19, 2013
I am really struggling with this book - reading it for Seattle Book Women's August retreat in a couple of weeks. I'm about ready to abandon it; I thoroughly dislike the style of writing - the folksiness, and what I perceive to be a distrust of the author to credit her readers with any intelligence. I also don't much like the fact that many of these women see themselves as unfulfilled without a man on their arm; I am so beyond that myself that I cannot relate to them. Do I still need to read it to become reacquainted with that feeling - I don't think so. Or do I need to keep reading it (I'm only 1/3 of the way through) to see whether they come into themselves and can stand alone? If I felt that would happen, I'd keep reading, but I can hardly stomach the writing style so this one has to go.
February 24, 2017
★★★★★ (5/5)
Grief is a process of finding comfort. It doesn’t have to be painful all the time.
An incredibly poignant and resilient book, Becky Aikman’s “Saturday Night Widows” is elegiac, gallant and affecting, reverberating with anyone in grief. Unlike Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, this book celebrates camaraderie between six strangers, all widows, who in a matter of twelve solid meetings spanning an entire year form a support system which not only heals them of their grievances but also addresses their individual concerns, assisting them in getting past the pain and moving on with their lives.
There were plenty of complications to go around. All of us—Denise, Dawn, Marcia, Lesley, Tara, me—had set out on a path to reinvent our lives with no idea of the scope and variety of the complications that awaited us
The alliances formed with this odd gathering of six women does not conform to the typical support group systems found in the US. Becky Aikman lost her husband Bernie to cancer after which she resolved to join a support group for widows. She was kicked out for her ‘normalcy’ when compared to other widows in the group. This is when Becky proposes to draw up her own support group but with differing principles. She welcomes five other women, who all seem sceptical at first, but gradually warm towards the companionship. These six women plan to meet once every month on Saturdays for a year, indulging not in mourning what they lost (husbands, families, trust in relationships) but immersing in experiences which would revitalize them and bring about closure.
My life was so stripped of interest and significance that I hungered for the ideal rather than the real, the abstract rather then the actual, when I wanted to see the world filtered through someone else’s interpretation, trusting it more than my own
They quickly build a rapport with one another, discussing elements of widowhood which have alienated them from society, the checklists to which they must adhere to, collective insecurities which plagues them every day – from losing a loved one to mistrusting themselves with another partner, from taboo subjects like sex to entire lifetimes dedicated to lamenting the dead. They unite in their woes only to emerge on the other side as happy and successful women who have bright futures ahead of them.
Any grief is layered with regrets, remorse, and contradictions
There are stark realizations associated with death of a loved one which are brilliantly portrayed in this book. Firstly, the guilt of not having done enough to save a life despite the matter of death being far beyond one’s control. For women whose spouses died of protracted illnesses, this was a common sentiment voiced.
Everyone at the table stiffened. Recognition. And triggers, those simple, familiar sights and sounds and tastes and smells that spark feelings sharper than any in the sensory world. For Marcia, they included an Italian restaurant that she passed almost every day. For me, there was the briny tang of freshly shucked oysters.
Secondly, regret of not feeling guilty enough haunts widows and widowers so much so that their actions become too internalised to make them fully-functional members of society. Eventually they lose their sense of responsibility and reality which can lead to devastating consequences for family members. This is epitomised through hesitancy of becoming involved in another relationship – a reluctance which is rooted in societal expectations as well as sentiments of ‘letting go’ of previous partner. After all, no period of time is lengthy enough after which one can readily accept another human being’s affections.
Never again, I vowed, would I view attachment as essential to my well-being. It became vitally important to subscribe to a definition of happiness rooted in remaining alone
Determined to insulate myself from pain, I vowed never again to become close enough to anyone to risk the anguish if that person were lost. Anything—loneliness, lack of popularity, solitary confinement—would be preferable to going through that again
Thirdly, remorse over having lost not just a human but a person with which one shared the longest, most immaculate of memories with. Age is an obvious concern here, with all the women above forty, set in their ways and lifestyles – yet not too young to radically alter their lives, nor too old to completely submit to fate. This insight brings about profound changes in their lives, especially in their love lives. Remarriage, romantic involvement or simply allowing men to re-enter their lives speaks volumes of how drastically positive group dynamics enforces readjustment of these strangers in their society.
Anyone who has ever been married knows that among the many perks—companionship, affection, reliable dinner conversation—one of the least appreciated is a well-curated stock of memories, the ability to turn to a longtime partner and say, “Remember the time …”
Unlike Didion’s book which mourned loss of her husband through an intensely personal lens, Becky Aikman goes to lengths to highlight the importance of companionship during periods of intense misery. In this book, closure is granted not due to tacky discussions of remembering the painful moments of life but the realisation of recalling happy times and cherishing them for a lifetime. All six women can relate to each other’s individual experiences through collective familiarity and provide one another with an understanding which has roots in pure kindness and not sympathy for its sake. This sort of acceptance brings about new levels of finality to the process of sorrow, each allowing new and unfamiliar experiences to refurbish their lives from scratch.
Here in this place out of space and time, I realized that it was possible to love two men at once, one who was present and one who lived only in memory
They share their Saturdays by touring museums, going lingerie shopping, joining a cooking class, going away for a weekend at a spa resort, relaxing on a beach or taking a ten-day vacation to Morocco. The women start to break their shells eventually, allowing space for prospective new partners, redesigning houses or relocating, welcoming career changes and accepting new professional positions. Introspection coupled with advice, guidance and exemplary lifestyles of each other provides each women with mettle to take a stand in a world where societal norms coerce widows to conform to archetypical roles of mourning, clad in black from head to toe. This mere audacity is inspiring as they draw from one another the strength to live and love again.
The desert is the perfect place to disconnect from the past and be in the present.
By the end, each of the six women have found wholesome lives once again to embrace. They rejoice in each other’s companionship and emanate life-affirming values. The reader is encouraged to not let solitariness following intense grief overpower them, and that sharing has incredible restorative powers.
Whether I had the bee dream because I was beginning to remember this already or whether I could remember this because I had the dream—who could say? But it all started to come back to me—my bedrock of optimism, my dormant ambition, the incurable curiosity
The narrative style of Aikman is tender and full of beauty, inviting the reader into personal lives of these six women without compromising any detail too personal which might unnerve the reader as it might border on intrusion. Her narration is controlled and graceful, handling delicate subjects like that of sex with poise and reflection. From heartrending admissions of denial and personal confessions to describing boisterous days out, Becky Aikman never outpaces the reader. Whilst reading this book, I felt a ghostly inclusion in their group activities as if the six women invited me to witness their marvellous process of healing from the inside and out.
Breathless, we perched at the lip of the towering wave, clasping each other for balance, although if we had tumbled no harm would come to us as we sank into the most forgiving of landings.
Overall, out of all books I’ve read on the process of bereavement, Becky Aikman’s “Saturday Night Widows” seems most confident in getting its message across – that life must be lived forward, that time aids in healing all woes, and it wouldn’t hurt to share a social life even if one is violently bereft of it on purpose.
ON BEING A WIDOW
No, it was all the rest of it that I needed to tackle now. The part about what to do next. The part about who to become next.
I was failing the stages of grief. I didn’t even understand them. I was a misfit widow.
We were cramming our personalities into the boxes on Jonathan’s checklists. Anger, check. Depression, check.
The defeatist vibe at that widows’ support group, perhaps a low point in the annals of social services for the bereaved
My long-married friends were thrilled, frothing for details. I would be their entertainment, relief from marital monotony
ON DEATH
For our generation, in our culture, in our lives, death was the one unmentionable.
Death has become unmentionable, and therefore unimaginable, and if unimaginable, therefore unmanageable. It should be impossible to recover from, we think, a mortal psychic blow.
COMIC RELIEF
It was surreal to contemplate that my entire future happiness might rest on the contours of my behind.
Humor, Bonanno said, is one of the strongest predictors of an eventual return to emotional equilibrium.
When I had visited George Bonanno’s emotions lab, the researchers analyzed my expressions, looking for what is called a Duchenne smile, named after a French anatomist who discovered that true, happy smiles always involve contracting the muscles around the eyes. It’s an involuntary crinkling absent from polite, deliberate smiles
BEAUTIFUL SENTENCES
Denise radiated thoughtful stillness. Whereas I radiated a sort of toxic anxiety
Nothing about Dawn indicated that anything was amiss in her life. If this was a mask, she wore it with flair.
She laughed, a big, frothy laugh, as free as spun sugar.
I often wondered about the definition of home. Is it the place where you live, or is it the place where the people you love reside?
I took off after those fish, tapping some lunatic strength to churn across the surface of the sea, punching into the choppy waves
I heard them before I saw them. And that’s saying something, since the ladies clustered around a crater-shaped fire pit out by the lake, faces like carnival masks lit by leaping flames.
You know how you can tell when a couple is clicking—you see that they admire, not so much the beauty or the intelligence or the wit of each other, but the everyday quirks that make someone real and distinct, that might even annoy someone not in love
The camels, tethered end to end, swayed silently beneath us into the dunes, and we patted them with unexpected affection. They were male, but their demeanor had a subversive feminine side, thanks to tender lips, big dreamy eyes, and long lashes, not to mention soft camel toes padding gently forward
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Grief is a process of finding comfort. It doesn’t have to be painful all the time.
An incredibly poignant and resilient book, Becky Aikman’s “Saturday Night Widows” is elegiac, gallant and affecting, reverberating with anyone in grief. Unlike Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, this book celebrates camaraderie between six strangers, all widows, who in a matter of twelve solid meetings spanning an entire year form a support system which not only heals them of their grievances but also addresses their individual concerns, assisting them in getting past the pain and moving on with their lives.
There were plenty of complications to go around. All of us—Denise, Dawn, Marcia, Lesley, Tara, me—had set out on a path to reinvent our lives with no idea of the scope and variety of the complications that awaited us
The alliances formed with this odd gathering of six women does not conform to the typical support group systems found in the US. Becky Aikman lost her husband Bernie to cancer after which she resolved to join a support group for widows. She was kicked out for her ‘normalcy’ when compared to other widows in the group. This is when Becky proposes to draw up her own support group but with differing principles. She welcomes five other women, who all seem sceptical at first, but gradually warm towards the companionship. These six women plan to meet once every month on Saturdays for a year, indulging not in mourning what they lost (husbands, families, trust in relationships) but immersing in experiences which would revitalize them and bring about closure.
My life was so stripped of interest and significance that I hungered for the ideal rather than the real, the abstract rather then the actual, when I wanted to see the world filtered through someone else’s interpretation, trusting it more than my own
They quickly build a rapport with one another, discussing elements of widowhood which have alienated them from society, the checklists to which they must adhere to, collective insecurities which plagues them every day – from losing a loved one to mistrusting themselves with another partner, from taboo subjects like sex to entire lifetimes dedicated to lamenting the dead. They unite in their woes only to emerge on the other side as happy and successful women who have bright futures ahead of them.
Any grief is layered with regrets, remorse, and contradictions
There are stark realizations associated with death of a loved one which are brilliantly portrayed in this book. Firstly, the guilt of not having done enough to save a life despite the matter of death being far beyond one’s control. For women whose spouses died of protracted illnesses, this was a common sentiment voiced.
Everyone at the table stiffened. Recognition. And triggers, those simple, familiar sights and sounds and tastes and smells that spark feelings sharper than any in the sensory world. For Marcia, they included an Italian restaurant that she passed almost every day. For me, there was the briny tang of freshly shucked oysters.
Secondly, regret of not feeling guilty enough haunts widows and widowers so much so that their actions become too internalised to make them fully-functional members of society. Eventually they lose their sense of responsibility and reality which can lead to devastating consequences for family members. This is epitomised through hesitancy of becoming involved in another relationship – a reluctance which is rooted in societal expectations as well as sentiments of ‘letting go’ of previous partner. After all, no period of time is lengthy enough after which one can readily accept another human being’s affections.
Never again, I vowed, would I view attachment as essential to my well-being. It became vitally important to subscribe to a definition of happiness rooted in remaining alone
Determined to insulate myself from pain, I vowed never again to become close enough to anyone to risk the anguish if that person were lost. Anything—loneliness, lack of popularity, solitary confinement—would be preferable to going through that again
Thirdly, remorse over having lost not just a human but a person with which one shared the longest, most immaculate of memories with. Age is an obvious concern here, with all the women above forty, set in their ways and lifestyles – yet not too young to radically alter their lives, nor too old to completely submit to fate. This insight brings about profound changes in their lives, especially in their love lives. Remarriage, romantic involvement or simply allowing men to re-enter their lives speaks volumes of how drastically positive group dynamics enforces readjustment of these strangers in their society.
Anyone who has ever been married knows that among the many perks—companionship, affection, reliable dinner conversation—one of the least appreciated is a well-curated stock of memories, the ability to turn to a longtime partner and say, “Remember the time …”
Unlike Didion’s book which mourned loss of her husband through an intensely personal lens, Becky Aikman goes to lengths to highlight the importance of companionship during periods of intense misery. In this book, closure is granted not due to tacky discussions of remembering the painful moments of life but the realisation of recalling happy times and cherishing them for a lifetime. All six women can relate to each other’s individual experiences through collective familiarity and provide one another with an understanding which has roots in pure kindness and not sympathy for its sake. This sort of acceptance brings about new levels of finality to the process of sorrow, each allowing new and unfamiliar experiences to refurbish their lives from scratch.
Here in this place out of space and time, I realized that it was possible to love two men at once, one who was present and one who lived only in memory
They share their Saturdays by touring museums, going lingerie shopping, joining a cooking class, going away for a weekend at a spa resort, relaxing on a beach or taking a ten-day vacation to Morocco. The women start to break their shells eventually, allowing space for prospective new partners, redesigning houses or relocating, welcoming career changes and accepting new professional positions. Introspection coupled with advice, guidance and exemplary lifestyles of each other provides each women with mettle to take a stand in a world where societal norms coerce widows to conform to archetypical roles of mourning, clad in black from head to toe. This mere audacity is inspiring as they draw from one another the strength to live and love again.
The desert is the perfect place to disconnect from the past and be in the present.
By the end, each of the six women have found wholesome lives once again to embrace. They rejoice in each other’s companionship and emanate life-affirming values. The reader is encouraged to not let solitariness following intense grief overpower them, and that sharing has incredible restorative powers.
Whether I had the bee dream because I was beginning to remember this already or whether I could remember this because I had the dream—who could say? But it all started to come back to me—my bedrock of optimism, my dormant ambition, the incurable curiosity
The narrative style of Aikman is tender and full of beauty, inviting the reader into personal lives of these six women without compromising any detail too personal which might unnerve the reader as it might border on intrusion. Her narration is controlled and graceful, handling delicate subjects like that of sex with poise and reflection. From heartrending admissions of denial and personal confessions to describing boisterous days out, Becky Aikman never outpaces the reader. Whilst reading this book, I felt a ghostly inclusion in their group activities as if the six women invited me to witness their marvellous process of healing from the inside and out.
Breathless, we perched at the lip of the towering wave, clasping each other for balance, although if we had tumbled no harm would come to us as we sank into the most forgiving of landings.
Overall, out of all books I’ve read on the process of bereavement, Becky Aikman’s “Saturday Night Widows” seems most confident in getting its message across – that life must be lived forward, that time aids in healing all woes, and it wouldn’t hurt to share a social life even if one is violently bereft of it on purpose.
ON BEING A WIDOW
No, it was all the rest of it that I needed to tackle now. The part about what to do next. The part about who to become next.
I was failing the stages of grief. I didn’t even understand them. I was a misfit widow.
We were cramming our personalities into the boxes on Jonathan’s checklists. Anger, check. Depression, check.
The defeatist vibe at that widows’ support group, perhaps a low point in the annals of social services for the bereaved
My long-married friends were thrilled, frothing for details. I would be their entertainment, relief from marital monotony
ON DEATH
For our generation, in our culture, in our lives, death was the one unmentionable.
Death has become unmentionable, and therefore unimaginable, and if unimaginable, therefore unmanageable. It should be impossible to recover from, we think, a mortal psychic blow.
COMIC RELIEF
It was surreal to contemplate that my entire future happiness might rest on the contours of my behind.
Humor, Bonanno said, is one of the strongest predictors of an eventual return to emotional equilibrium.
When I had visited George Bonanno’s emotions lab, the researchers analyzed my expressions, looking for what is called a Duchenne smile, named after a French anatomist who discovered that true, happy smiles always involve contracting the muscles around the eyes. It’s an involuntary crinkling absent from polite, deliberate smiles
BEAUTIFUL SENTENCES
Denise radiated thoughtful stillness. Whereas I radiated a sort of toxic anxiety
Nothing about Dawn indicated that anything was amiss in her life. If this was a mask, she wore it with flair.
She laughed, a big, frothy laugh, as free as spun sugar.
I often wondered about the definition of home. Is it the place where you live, or is it the place where the people you love reside?
I took off after those fish, tapping some lunatic strength to churn across the surface of the sea, punching into the choppy waves
I heard them before I saw them. And that’s saying something, since the ladies clustered around a crater-shaped fire pit out by the lake, faces like carnival masks lit by leaping flames.
You know how you can tell when a couple is clicking—you see that they admire, not so much the beauty or the intelligence or the wit of each other, but the everyday quirks that make someone real and distinct, that might even annoy someone not in love
The camels, tethered end to end, swayed silently beneath us into the dunes, and we patted them with unexpected affection. They were male, but their demeanor had a subversive feminine side, thanks to tender lips, big dreamy eyes, and long lashes, not to mention soft camel toes padding gently forward
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February 12, 2014
I wanted to like this book. Really. But what I thought was going to be a life-affirming story about six women reinventing their lives after their husbands passed away was actually a kind of preachy self-help on how to get through grief. The author kept going over the point that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief were not meant for the survivors but for the one dying. After about the third time I thought "if you're going to write a a tale of adventure (author's words), write that....not a thesis." She was already remarried before she started the Saturday Night Women's Group. So what was the point? Add to that the fact that research had the author calling on a professor at Cornell to get to the bottom of 'what grief really is' made it feel like a textbook. I didn't finish the book.
April 7, 2013
Though I was widowed at a young age, I did not connect with any of the characters in this memoir.
I did not feel I got to know any of them except on a very surface level. i actually found the book to be written in a simplistic way devoid of raw emotions. There was no edginess to it. I did not laugh at all and was greatly disappointed.
Happy the women moved forward and found happiness again and that is the one positive I found in the book.
I did not feel I got to know any of them except on a very surface level. i actually found the book to be written in a simplistic way devoid of raw emotions. There was no edginess to it. I did not laugh at all and was greatly disappointed.
Happy the women moved forward and found happiness again and that is the one positive I found in the book.
October 3, 2017
How do you survive the death of your significant other and your only 40+ years of age? This is the question these widows asked themselves. Society has depicted what a widow should be doing and how they should act during their grieving process. Becky, Tara, Denise, Dawn, Lesley and Marcia are six widows that are trying to recapture their life without their significant other but don't know how or believe that society doesn't understand what they are going through.
There was so much that I learned in regards to reading about their loss. It's painstakingly clear that there's no proper way to grieve and everyone grieves differently. The five stages of death are not about the people left behind....it's concerning those that are departing this earth. As usual, there are women around the world that don't have the luxury of grieving and making decisions about the rest of their life. Someone else does it for them.
A true story that opens your mind to the realm of moving on past the death of a spouse or anyone that's significant to you. There are no words of warmth or satisfaction to give to the person affected and we lose interest and are ready to move on but they can't or are not ready. A moving story that allowed us to see just how death affects people regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity and so forth.
There was so much that I learned in regards to reading about their loss. It's painstakingly clear that there's no proper way to grieve and everyone grieves differently. The five stages of death are not about the people left behind....it's concerning those that are departing this earth. As usual, there are women around the world that don't have the luxury of grieving and making decisions about the rest of their life. Someone else does it for them.
A true story that opens your mind to the realm of moving on past the death of a spouse or anyone that's significant to you. There are no words of warmth or satisfaction to give to the person affected and we lose interest and are ready to move on but they can't or are not ready. A moving story that allowed us to see just how death affects people regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity and so forth.
December 24, 2013
First and as always, I received this book because it arrived at my doorstep for the purposes of review. Would I spend my own money on this book? No. Unless it was a gift for a rich widow who can probably buy her own copy.
As a narrative construct, this is a nice story. The author lost her husband but bands together with five strangers to make her life into something wonderful again. That is to be applauded as the author writes a very intimate portrait of the situation she found herself in and the steps she went through with her group to recover from that terrible loss. Her writing is crisp, detailed and professional.
I would say, however, that as a tool for others to cope with their own loss, this has a pretty limited scope. The author and her new-found friends cope with their loss at least in part by going to the spa and enjoying private tours of the Met and jetting off to Paris, the Galapagos Islands, and Morocco. The more typical widow, sadly, does't have that sort of resources and will find this book only marginally helpful, if at all, and then only as escapism.
In summary, I give this four stars only because I don't really know what it intends to be. If it is purely a memoir, then it's well-constructed and truthful. If it is intended to be somehow helpful to anyone else then the audience is painfully narrow.
As a narrative construct, this is a nice story. The author lost her husband but bands together with five strangers to make her life into something wonderful again. That is to be applauded as the author writes a very intimate portrait of the situation she found herself in and the steps she went through with her group to recover from that terrible loss. Her writing is crisp, detailed and professional.
I would say, however, that as a tool for others to cope with their own loss, this has a pretty limited scope. The author and her new-found friends cope with their loss at least in part by going to the spa and enjoying private tours of the Met and jetting off to Paris, the Galapagos Islands, and Morocco. The more typical widow, sadly, does't have that sort of resources and will find this book only marginally helpful, if at all, and then only as escapism.
In summary, I give this four stars only because I don't really know what it intends to be. If it is purely a memoir, then it's well-constructed and truthful. If it is intended to be somehow helpful to anyone else then the audience is painfully narrow.
December 12, 2021
3.5 stars. I enjoyed hearing about the women’s experiences and growth but the author was also a bit blind to their privilege. Very white and wealthy.
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December 27, 2019Oh boy. I sat down today to listen to the audiobook for this one, and I only made it through the prologue before I had to quit. The opening of this book is the most woe-is-me, I'm-so-special, the-world's-out-to-get-me, chip-on-my-shoulder bullshit. Is there anything I want to do less with my time than hear a well-off white woman complain about how other people don't realize how hard her life is? Seriously, the scene in which Becky gets asked not to return to a widow's counseling group is the most cartoonishly fake thing I've ever heard. Everyone hates her for being young and beautiful and not grieving properly (and since prior to facing this judgment, she already ranted copiously about the five stages of grief--because apparently she HATES her own incorrect assumptions about the five stages of grief, which she can't be fucked to actually learn about--it doesn't come across as something that actually happened so much as it comes across as something Becky's projecting onto other people), because they're all just old and traditional and bitter and not hip like she is! Fucking gag me.
Basically, there's not a single word of the opening I believe except for that maybe she really was asked not to return to a widow's group at one point in her life. But do I believe that it happened the way she writes it did? Oh, fuck no. It's painfully manufactured and perfectly crafted to make Becky sound like the most innocent victim to ever be victimized by the elderly version of stereotypical mean girls. And I suspect "manufactured" is probably the perfect word for it; chapter one launches into her story about trying to pull together a group of six other widows that might "get" her better. On that front, I will simply direct everyone to this review, which reflects a bit on how seemingly calculated and deliberate this book's inception was. I can't speak to any of that, but it's an interesting perspective that definitely gels with the feeling I got about the whole thing.
Since I read so little of this book, I will not be rating it. I do, however, STRONGLY suspect that my rating, had I completed the memoir, would have been one star. I really couldn't stand what I did read, and the critical reviews of it here on Goodreads point to some other stuff in future chapters that probably would've driven me up a wall.
If this book sounds like it's up your alley, give it a shot. There's always room in the world for more female-centric memoirs (and for more readers of that niche!). But Saturday Night Widows definitely didn't appeal to me.
Basically, there's not a single word of the opening I believe except for that maybe she really was asked not to return to a widow's group at one point in her life. But do I believe that it happened the way she writes it did? Oh, fuck no. It's painfully manufactured and perfectly crafted to make Becky sound like the most innocent victim to ever be victimized by the elderly version of stereotypical mean girls. And I suspect "manufactured" is probably the perfect word for it; chapter one launches into her story about trying to pull together a group of six other widows that might "get" her better. On that front, I will simply direct everyone to this review, which reflects a bit on how seemingly calculated and deliberate this book's inception was. I can't speak to any of that, but it's an interesting perspective that definitely gels with the feeling I got about the whole thing.
Since I read so little of this book, I will not be rating it. I do, however, STRONGLY suspect that my rating, had I completed the memoir, would have been one star. I really couldn't stand what I did read, and the critical reviews of it here on Goodreads point to some other stuff in future chapters that probably would've driven me up a wall.
If this book sounds like it's up your alley, give it a shot. There's always room in the world for more female-centric memoirs (and for more readers of that niche!). But Saturday Night Widows definitely didn't appeal to me.
January 20, 2013
Becky Aikman was in her 40s when her husband Bernie died of cancer. She tried going to a widow's support group, but she was the youngest in the room (by a lot) and the experience was a lot more depressing than she wanted it to be, so she decided to start her own group. She finally found five other women (friends of friends or acquaintances). The experiences are all different (some of the deaths were sudden, some weren't, and the women had been widows for different lengths of time) but they quickly became friends.
I've never been married so obviously I have no first-hand experience at being a widow. But I do love books where people reinvent themselves and/or have adventures and I love books about friendship, so I was happy when this book came in the mail.
It was also the second book I read since my cousin died, and I think it was oddly enough a perfect choice. This obviously wasn't our relationship but there are some great parts about grief in there, as you would naturally expect there to be.
And while I would've expected a book full of the specter of death and missing people to depress the hell out of me, it really didn't. And it helped that while the women in the book were sad, they were also determined to not let that sadness define them.
But I think the most interesting part was the discussion of widows vs. widowers. We always picture widows as being older, but that isn't always the case. And it definitely seems that men move on faster than women, at least in terms of getting back into relationships. I think part of that is that men seem to find it easier to keep emotion out of it. (Not speaking for all women, but that's definitely something I struggle with.)
Highly recommended.
I've never been married so obviously I have no first-hand experience at being a widow. But I do love books where people reinvent themselves and/or have adventures and I love books about friendship, so I was happy when this book came in the mail.
It was also the second book I read since my cousin died, and I think it was oddly enough a perfect choice. This obviously wasn't our relationship but there are some great parts about grief in there, as you would naturally expect there to be.
And while I would've expected a book full of the specter of death and missing people to depress the hell out of me, it really didn't. And it helped that while the women in the book were sad, they were also determined to not let that sadness define them.
But I think the most interesting part was the discussion of widows vs. widowers. We always picture widows as being older, but that isn't always the case. And it definitely seems that men move on faster than women, at least in terms of getting back into relationships. I think part of that is that men seem to find it easier to keep emotion out of it. (Not speaking for all women, but that's definitely something I struggle with.)
Highly recommended.
April 16, 2013
A few years after her husband died, journalist Becky Aikman gathered five other widows together to form an optimistic, forward-thinking support group - no Five Stages of Grief allowed. This is the story of their first year together, along with interesting research about grief, recovery, and relationships. The best way to describe my feelings about this book is that I want to give it a big hug. While I was divorced and not widowed, certain aspects of my situation have caused me to relate more to widows than other divorced women. Like Aikman, I've felt like a misfit among misfits as I've rebuilt my life. Reading these brave ladies' stories and being a virtual party to their conversations made me feel 100% less alone. It reassured and encouraged me so much that I only regret not reading this book sooner. I could go on and on about the revelations I've had as a result, but your time would be better spent just reading the book yourself. I'm so thankful for people willing to share their stories.
December 12, 2012
The author puts together a support group of young widows. She decides to do this after being kicked out of a clinical grief therapy group that in her opinion turned into a “Who’s Most Pitiful” contest and full of older widows who she couldn’t connect with. The goal of her newly formed group is to share feelings, have lots of laughs, go on adventures, and reinvent themselves. We learn their stories and how differently they handle their emotions in dealing with their respective tragedies. Early on it doesn’t appear these widows have a lot in common except their affluence but their friendships blossom. I did not care for this book and it was difficult for me to finish because I could not identify with any of the characters and thankfully have not experienced the loss of a spouse. The book is geared for someone who has suffered such a loss and I believe can be successful in helping someone move forward and embrace the future.
February 13, 2013
Becky Aikman has done an impressive job of capturing the experience of being widowed at a younger age - I just finished the book, close to the 4th anniversary of my husband's death at 49. I can't speak for how this book would be for an average reader, but for me it was one of the better books I've read on what it's like to be a widow right now. She quotes from some great research out there about grieving (George Bonanno at Columbia among them - his book The Other Side of Sadness is excellent), but even more importantly provides a very accurate description of the emotions and societal implications of young widowhood. The need to completely reinvent your life in this situation was portrayed beautifully, and I found myself reading achingly familiar scenes throughout. I'm very grateful to have found this book - and am very grateful Ms. Aikman chose to share these stories.
September 19, 2013
This book isn't amazing, but it is enjoyable and well done. Fortysomething widow Becky Aikman gathered five other young (and apparently affluent) widowed women and started a little club for them. What comes out is a less annoying version of Eat, Pray, Love mixed with The Happiness Project. All the widows except one are clearly "spiritual but not religious." It was pleasurable to see them become closer friends, despite their (relatively shallow) differences. It's very much a story of the power of female friendships and the resiliency of the human spirit.
June 27, 2015
This book touched on very "sensitive" subject matter but it was so well worth the read. I loved all the characters and the things they did to help themselves and each other get through some very difficult times. "This book will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize."
April 27, 2016
I liked how this book delved into many aspects of becoming a widow/widower. I would have rated it higher, but the ongoing encouragement of the members to their new friends to hook up seemed contrary to the group's purpose of helping each other heal and make a new, meaningful life.
May 4, 2024
Reminded me of my group of widows! Shows just how important it is to find your tribe. People who are going through the same things as you. Whether you're a widow or not, you should read this book. If you're a widow, it shows how important it is to find your fellow widows to walk the journey with. If you're not a widow, will help you to understand how to help those going through it. I thought this was fiction but it's a true story. I couldn't put it down! The grieving never ends, but it changes over time.
May 30, 2020
I really enjoyed this book and wish I could remember how it came to my attention. A lovely memoir for dealing with grief and moving through life while honoring the ones you've loved and lost, including the You you used to be.
April 26, 2019
Ahhhh quite endearing. 💗 The bonds made between this women was adorable. Made me happy that they found the friends they could rely on through grief.
September 17, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this. A stunning reminder of how wonderful women are
April 18, 2025
The blurbs are more interesting than the actual story.
October 30, 2020
Interesting mix of support group documentary, self reflection, and tribute to both friendship and love. Both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
April 5, 2013
You can find my full review here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.c...
Six women embark on a journey of discovery that ends with a trip to the exotic land of Morocco. They toast their journey, "To our dead husbands. We wouldn't be here if they hadn't died."
Becky Aikman, a New York newspaper reporter, was widowed in her forties when her husband Bernie died of cancer. Casting around for a way to deal with the overwhelming grief, she joined a traditional support group for widows only to find that the group was bringing her emotionally down even further. There had to be something better, she thought. She set out to study the human response to losing a partner and report about it. Her memoir, Saturday Night Widows, is the result of the journey.
Eventually, she formed a group of six widows in their 30s through 50s who met on Saturday nights once a month for a year to support each other. She really had no expectations for the group at first, because everyone seemed so different--the only thing they had in common was their widowhood. Rather quickly, they gained confidence in each other and supported each other as they moved beyond grief to joyful new lives. Interspersed throughout the narrative of the group process is Aikman's own story, of her beloved husband's slow death from cancer. The author briefly tells the stories of each of the other women, although we don't come to know them quite as well. By the time Aikman wrote Saturday Night Widows, she had happily remarried and as the book closes, she gives a summary of how the lives of each of the women had evolved.
Although we get a good look at the kind of pain that comes from losing a partner, the book is a marvelous affirmation that there can be joy after loss, happiness after devastation, growth and renewal. Aiken shows that there is a natural inclination of people to trust each other and support each other. Each of these women was interested in moving forward with her life, and that made all the difference. She says, "I hadn't been looking for a bunch of docile widows, and I certainly didn't get them...they were beginning to flourish, rediscovering themselves."
Of course, I couldn't help but insert my own story into Saturday Night Widows. I wished that I had found such a great group of friends when I was a young widow. When Lee died, we were both 41 years old and we had three children--15, 11, and 2. It had been a very long illness, so much of my grieving happened before he died. At one point, I had the very clear realization that the children and I were going to be alright, no matter what happened. After Lee died, I had very little time for grief; I had to create a new life for myself and my children quickly. An older woman once told me that even though her husband had died 20-years before and she had remarried, occasionally she would be overcome with grief.
I remember telling the story of Lee's illness and death over and over in my mind so that I wouldn't forget it and could tell it to the children if they needed to hear it. When I decided to write the story down a few years ago, all the old grief welled up and I had to quit. I think that now that I have read Becky Aikman's story, I can begin to write about it again.
Despite the subject, Saturday Night Widows is a book most every woman can relate to in their own lives, and the story of women reinventing themselves is a universal one. Very inspiring. The reviewer in the Washington Post says, "The spirit of Saturday Night Widows bursts the stereotype of glum, mournful widowhood with the energy of a pent-up thirst for life. It carries the real sorrow and pain of a terrible human experience, but it also moves relentlessly and joyfully into the current of ongoing adventure."
The Washington Post review: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/20...
You might also be interested in the memoir of Abby Rike, Working It Out. Rike's husband and children were killed in a car accident. The book is the story of her coming back to life.
Six women embark on a journey of discovery that ends with a trip to the exotic land of Morocco. They toast their journey, "To our dead husbands. We wouldn't be here if they hadn't died."
Becky Aikman, a New York newspaper reporter, was widowed in her forties when her husband Bernie died of cancer. Casting around for a way to deal with the overwhelming grief, she joined a traditional support group for widows only to find that the group was bringing her emotionally down even further. There had to be something better, she thought. She set out to study the human response to losing a partner and report about it. Her memoir, Saturday Night Widows, is the result of the journey.
Eventually, she formed a group of six widows in their 30s through 50s who met on Saturday nights once a month for a year to support each other. She really had no expectations for the group at first, because everyone seemed so different--the only thing they had in common was their widowhood. Rather quickly, they gained confidence in each other and supported each other as they moved beyond grief to joyful new lives. Interspersed throughout the narrative of the group process is Aikman's own story, of her beloved husband's slow death from cancer. The author briefly tells the stories of each of the other women, although we don't come to know them quite as well. By the time Aikman wrote Saturday Night Widows, she had happily remarried and as the book closes, she gives a summary of how the lives of each of the women had evolved.
Although we get a good look at the kind of pain that comes from losing a partner, the book is a marvelous affirmation that there can be joy after loss, happiness after devastation, growth and renewal. Aiken shows that there is a natural inclination of people to trust each other and support each other. Each of these women was interested in moving forward with her life, and that made all the difference. She says, "I hadn't been looking for a bunch of docile widows, and I certainly didn't get them...they were beginning to flourish, rediscovering themselves."
Of course, I couldn't help but insert my own story into Saturday Night Widows. I wished that I had found such a great group of friends when I was a young widow. When Lee died, we were both 41 years old and we had three children--15, 11, and 2. It had been a very long illness, so much of my grieving happened before he died. At one point, I had the very clear realization that the children and I were going to be alright, no matter what happened. After Lee died, I had very little time for grief; I had to create a new life for myself and my children quickly. An older woman once told me that even though her husband had died 20-years before and she had remarried, occasionally she would be overcome with grief.
I remember telling the story of Lee's illness and death over and over in my mind so that I wouldn't forget it and could tell it to the children if they needed to hear it. When I decided to write the story down a few years ago, all the old grief welled up and I had to quit. I think that now that I have read Becky Aikman's story, I can begin to write about it again.
Despite the subject, Saturday Night Widows is a book most every woman can relate to in their own lives, and the story of women reinventing themselves is a universal one. Very inspiring. The reviewer in the Washington Post says, "The spirit of Saturday Night Widows bursts the stereotype of glum, mournful widowhood with the energy of a pent-up thirst for life. It carries the real sorrow and pain of a terrible human experience, but it also moves relentlessly and joyfully into the current of ongoing adventure."
The Washington Post review: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/20...
You might also be interested in the memoir of Abby Rike, Working It Out. Rike's husband and children were killed in a car accident. The book is the story of her coming back to life.
April 24, 2018
Love it!!!!
I never ever write a review. This book spoke to me. As a young widow it touched on everything that I have or do feel. The guilt of still living and wanting to keep living. This book is an inspiration.
I never ever write a review. This book spoke to me. As a young widow it touched on everything that I have or do feel. The guilt of still living and wanting to keep living. This book is an inspiration.
August 12, 2013
Just finished Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman, which is the chronicle of a year in the lives of six unlikely women who came together to help each other through a challenge they each faced: widowhood. Aikman, a widow in her mid-40s, struggled to find other women in her shoes who could help her deal with her grief and find a way to move forward. She tried a support group but found herself out of place among older, grieving women who were not interested in moving on and reestablishing their lives. So she decided to form her own group. She networked and found five other women who had recently lost their husbands, and formed a group to see whether they might be able to help each other.
The Saturday Night Widows – Becky, Tara, Dawn, Lesley, Denise and Marcia – were very different from each other. Some had kids, some had moved on to new relationships. Their husbands had died in different ways – cancer, heart attack, suicide, alcoholism, accident. Yet they had open minds and hearts, and building on monthly meetings (usually on Saturday nights), they ended up forming a tight bond that continues to this day. They discussed all of the difficult topics they were facing – what to do with their husbands’ possessions; how to handle dating; how to afford living in expensive Manhattan apartments on one salary. They pushed themselves to try new things – spas, lingerie shopping, cooking classes – all the while relying on each other for support, honesty, and moments of levity that were badly needed.
I was worried that Saturday Night Widows might be boring, but it wasn’t. I liked how Aikman teased out each woman’s story (including her own), weaving them through the year of monthly Saturday meetings, which provided the narrative infrastructure of the book. I enjoyed learning about each woman and how her individual arc of grief both differed from and mirrored that of other group members. Most of all, I liked these real, relatable women. I suspect that the book skips over a lot of the more private issues these women faced, but there was enough in here to give the reader a really good sense of who they were and what widowhood is like.
I discovered Aikman’s public Facebook page last night, and it was fun to see photos of the Saturday Night Widows and some recent updates about their lives. It’s rare to have the opportunity to follow up with characters in a book after you finish them, so this was a treat. I look forward to more updates on the page.
Finally, I started Saturday Night Widows on audio but thankfully transitioned to the print version about 1/3 of the way through. I can’t recommend the audio. The narrator is way too perky and upbeat – she’s a terrible match for the subject matter of Saturday Night Widows. She sounds like she should be narrating children’s books, not a memoir about widowhood. And her individual depictions of the six women were very exaggerated. I was so glad to switch to the print and let Aikman’s voice shine through, not the perky narrator’s.
I really enjoyed Saturday Night Widows and look forward to keeping up with these remarkable women via social media!
full review: http://everydayiwritethebookblog.com/...
The Saturday Night Widows – Becky, Tara, Dawn, Lesley, Denise and Marcia – were very different from each other. Some had kids, some had moved on to new relationships. Their husbands had died in different ways – cancer, heart attack, suicide, alcoholism, accident. Yet they had open minds and hearts, and building on monthly meetings (usually on Saturday nights), they ended up forming a tight bond that continues to this day. They discussed all of the difficult topics they were facing – what to do with their husbands’ possessions; how to handle dating; how to afford living in expensive Manhattan apartments on one salary. They pushed themselves to try new things – spas, lingerie shopping, cooking classes – all the while relying on each other for support, honesty, and moments of levity that were badly needed.
I was worried that Saturday Night Widows might be boring, but it wasn’t. I liked how Aikman teased out each woman’s story (including her own), weaving them through the year of monthly Saturday meetings, which provided the narrative infrastructure of the book. I enjoyed learning about each woman and how her individual arc of grief both differed from and mirrored that of other group members. Most of all, I liked these real, relatable women. I suspect that the book skips over a lot of the more private issues these women faced, but there was enough in here to give the reader a really good sense of who they were and what widowhood is like.
I discovered Aikman’s public Facebook page last night, and it was fun to see photos of the Saturday Night Widows and some recent updates about their lives. It’s rare to have the opportunity to follow up with characters in a book after you finish them, so this was a treat. I look forward to more updates on the page.
Finally, I started Saturday Night Widows on audio but thankfully transitioned to the print version about 1/3 of the way through. I can’t recommend the audio. The narrator is way too perky and upbeat – she’s a terrible match for the subject matter of Saturday Night Widows. She sounds like she should be narrating children’s books, not a memoir about widowhood. And her individual depictions of the six women were very exaggerated. I was so glad to switch to the print and let Aikman’s voice shine through, not the perky narrator’s.
I really enjoyed Saturday Night Widows and look forward to keeping up with these remarkable women via social media!
full review: http://everydayiwritethebookblog.com/...
August 14, 2013
After getting kicked out of her traditional widows' support group for being too negative/critical, author does some digging into research on grieving and decides that 5 rigid stages are out, trying to continue living and have a sense of humor are in. She asks around, finds 5 other young (40's/50's) widows and organizes them to spend one Sat. evening together each month for a year trying new adventures.
Deals with a number of interesting issues (visitation dreams in which one's late husband seems to be back; emotional and logistical complexities of dating as a widow; blending a group whose defining similarity coexists with quite a bit of heterogeneity of personality and circumstance [e.g., husband died of cancer vs. husband you were about to divorce died of alcoholism vs. husband killed himself......].
Details of their shared activities were at times tedious to me, but that would depend on your interests of course. They're apparently well to do, as it's one private museum tour after another spa getaway, culminating in a trip to Morocco in which the big complication is getting everyone to agree on just the right amount of roughing it vs. luxury hotels as they prepare for camel rides. And back in NYC the specificity of narrative exceeded my attention span on outings such as shopping for lingerie -- play by play on who tried on what and how she looked in it, etc.
But the overall saga of their relationships and their efforts to get back into life was engaging. Particularly appreciated her description of her own remarriage and the ups and downs of becoming a stepmom to a 14-yo girl. During one of the down periods, "Bob tried to discuss the situation with Lily when I wasn't around. 'Someday you will grow up and have your own life, and I'll be here by myself,' he said. 'Do you want me to be alone for the rest of my life?'
'Yes.'"
well, thanks for your candor! Author seemed to have a deft touch in eventually building that blended family, and it's easy to cheer for her and her friends as they put their lives back together.
Deals with a number of interesting issues (visitation dreams in which one's late husband seems to be back; emotional and logistical complexities of dating as a widow; blending a group whose defining similarity coexists with quite a bit of heterogeneity of personality and circumstance [e.g., husband died of cancer vs. husband you were about to divorce died of alcoholism vs. husband killed himself......].
Details of their shared activities were at times tedious to me, but that would depend on your interests of course. They're apparently well to do, as it's one private museum tour after another spa getaway, culminating in a trip to Morocco in which the big complication is getting everyone to agree on just the right amount of roughing it vs. luxury hotels as they prepare for camel rides. And back in NYC the specificity of narrative exceeded my attention span on outings such as shopping for lingerie -- play by play on who tried on what and how she looked in it, etc.
But the overall saga of their relationships and their efforts to get back into life was engaging. Particularly appreciated her description of her own remarriage and the ups and downs of becoming a stepmom to a 14-yo girl. During one of the down periods, "Bob tried to discuss the situation with Lily when I wasn't around. 'Someday you will grow up and have your own life, and I'll be here by myself,' he said. 'Do you want me to be alone for the rest of my life?'
'Yes.'"
well, thanks for your candor! Author seemed to have a deft touch in eventually building that blended family, and it's easy to cheer for her and her friends as they put their lives back together.
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