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Joy Enough: A Memoir
A Belletrist Book of the Month, this “exquisite memoir” (Los Angeles Times) is the perfect balm for any reader who has experienced loss.
Lipsticks applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked—such memories are recalled with “crystalline perfection” (J.C. Hallmann, Brooklyn Rail) in Sarah McColl’s breathtaking testimonial to the joy and pain of loving well. When her mother, Allison, was diagnosed with cancer, McColl dropped everything—including her on-the-rocks marriage—to return to the family farmhouse and fix elaborate meals in the hope of nourishing her back to health. In “thoughtful and finely crafted prose” (Martha Anne Toll, NPR.org) McColl reveals Allison to be an extraordinary woman of infinite love for her unruly brood of children. Mining her dual losses “with humor and charm” (Rachel Kong, New York Times Book Review) to confront her identity as a woman, McColl walks lightly in the footsteps of the woman who came before her. “A gorgeous, painful, exhilarating debut” (Kirstin Valdez-Quade), Joy Enough is an essential guide to clinging fast to the joy left behind, for readers of Ann Hood and Jenny Offill.
Lipsticks applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked—such memories are recalled with “crystalline perfection” (J.C. Hallmann, Brooklyn Rail) in Sarah McColl’s breathtaking testimonial to the joy and pain of loving well. When her mother, Allison, was diagnosed with cancer, McColl dropped everything—including her on-the-rocks marriage—to return to the family farmhouse and fix elaborate meals in the hope of nourishing her back to health. In “thoughtful and finely crafted prose” (Martha Anne Toll, NPR.org) McColl reveals Allison to be an extraordinary woman of infinite love for her unruly brood of children. Mining her dual losses “with humor and charm” (Rachel Kong, New York Times Book Review) to confront her identity as a woman, McColl walks lightly in the footsteps of the woman who came before her. “A gorgeous, painful, exhilarating debut” (Kirstin Valdez-Quade), Joy Enough is an essential guide to clinging fast to the joy left behind, for readers of Ann Hood and Jenny Offill.
158 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
January 2, 2019
Like a cool washcloth on a hot forehead. This was the perfect balm for my own grieving soul.
January 21, 2019
I'm all in for grief memoirs, still, and Joy Enough by Sarah McColl is an honest capture of layered grief - loss of marriage, loss of mother. It's not only bad parts and her past is largely positive, so it isn't all sad, very true to reality.
I would give this to a friend struggling with a parent's illness or terminal diagnosis. It's hopeful in its straightforward look at everyday death (that never feels "normal" when you go through it.)
I would give this to a friend struggling with a parent's illness or terminal diagnosis. It's hopeful in its straightforward look at everyday death (that never feels "normal" when you go through it.)
January 16, 2019
“I loved my mother and she died. Is that a story?”
This book caught me off guard and pulled me in with that first line.
What follows is the story of a mother’s impact on her family, and especially on her daughter, Sarah.
The language is rife with beautiful metaphors, and the structure is delicately woven around memories of her mother.
This is a tender artful expression of pain and longing, beautifully written.
Finishing it, I’m reminded of the great value of memories, and the stories they carry.
This book caught me off guard and pulled me in with that first line.
What follows is the story of a mother’s impact on her family, and especially on her daughter, Sarah.
The language is rife with beautiful metaphors, and the structure is delicately woven around memories of her mother.
This is a tender artful expression of pain and longing, beautifully written.
Finishing it, I’m reminded of the great value of memories, and the stories they carry.
March 2, 2019
I watched McColl's edition of "stacked" on belletrist's Instagram and she talked about all of her own books with such affection; I decided I must read the work of a woman who takes that much pleasure in words. Joy Enough is strangely Dionysian. It luxuriates in language. (I was not surprised to learn that the author once earned her living making people's mouths water as a food writer.) McColl imbues every meal eaten, every landscape viewed, and every question answered, with meaning. She gives voice to the loneliness of a non-functional marriage with subtlety and nuance. McColl knows the way that each little day is profound and she transmits her message with delicacy and grace. She is wise. I very much recommend this lush, ruminative, memoir of loss and life.
March 17, 2020
goddamn, i love a good memoir
February 24, 2019
Memoirs are tricky beasts. Save the odd, truly sensational story, I believe these monsters only can be conquered by those who are either incredibly talented or obscenely narcissistic. Often times, the writer must be both. McColl, however, does not appear to be either.
Her writing style shows promise. The work includes flashes where she seems earnest and desperate to claim her craft. These lines are layered between tired cliche's, however, and worn out platitudes about white, childless women who encounter a divorce. McColl doesn't write herself as a very interesting person, which proves my theory that either she is untalented or is, in fact, quite a vapid individual.
Her mother, however, is painted as much more tangible; she is a real person, full of flaws yet spooling bits of motherhood advice. It's ironic to me that the mother, whose death is at the center of the story, is more alive that McColl herself.
It's a quick read easily accomplished in the breadth of an afternoon. The memoir falls neatly into a parental death/find yourself niche. For McColl, the depth of finding herself includes buying a country home and learning to change a lightbulb herself. This type of cursory examination may satisfy some, but it left me asking, "this is it?"
Her writing style shows promise. The work includes flashes where she seems earnest and desperate to claim her craft. These lines are layered between tired cliche's, however, and worn out platitudes about white, childless women who encounter a divorce. McColl doesn't write herself as a very interesting person, which proves my theory that either she is untalented or is, in fact, quite a vapid individual.
Her mother, however, is painted as much more tangible; she is a real person, full of flaws yet spooling bits of motherhood advice. It's ironic to me that the mother, whose death is at the center of the story, is more alive that McColl herself.
It's a quick read easily accomplished in the breadth of an afternoon. The memoir falls neatly into a parental death/find yourself niche. For McColl, the depth of finding herself includes buying a country home and learning to change a lightbulb herself. This type of cursory examination may satisfy some, but it left me asking, "this is it?"
June 4, 2018
Joy Enough is a beautifully written memoir about love, and the life and loss of her mother.
I received an advanced copy from NY BookCon.
I received an advanced copy from NY BookCon.
July 14, 2019
Joy Enough is a beautiful expression of a mother’s life through a daughter’s eyes, and heart stopping loss. Sarah writes about her mother’s illness and untimely passing with eloquence and pain. It’s a view of grief that makes you feel like you’re living it firsthand; a true testament to her writing. It’s one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.
March 17, 2019
"I loved my mother, and she died. Is that a story?"
I was captivated from the first sentence of this lyrical, fragmented memoir, and my attention was held through tears and laughter and heartbreak and joy until even after the final sentence. This is a book that begs to be re-read and savored again, and I will be heeding that call.
I was captivated from the first sentence of this lyrical, fragmented memoir, and my attention was held through tears and laughter and heartbreak and joy until even after the final sentence. This is a book that begs to be re-read and savored again, and I will be heeding that call.
December 4, 2019
I enjoyed this, it made me cry a lil
December 22, 2018
I won an Advance Reading Copy of Joy Enough: A Memoir by Sarah McColl from Goodreads.
I'm reading Joy Enough: A Memoir by Sarah McColl, readers experience defining moments in the author's life that are at once unique to the writer and familiar to the reader. Recognizing the growing pains endured by the author and sharing the emotions, readers can't help but to empathize with McColl and to revisit the precious, life changing, identity forming moments of their own lives.
Sweet and sad, insightful and uplifting, Sarah McColl's Joy Enough is a quick read with a long impact.
I'm reading Joy Enough: A Memoir by Sarah McColl, readers experience defining moments in the author's life that are at once unique to the writer and familiar to the reader. Recognizing the growing pains endured by the author and sharing the emotions, readers can't help but to empathize with McColl and to revisit the precious, life changing, identity forming moments of their own lives.
Sweet and sad, insightful and uplifting, Sarah McColl's Joy Enough is a quick read with a long impact.
February 4, 2019
Sarah McColl's mother dies, she loved her, she wonders if it is a strong enough story. It certainly is. McColl writes beautifully of love and death in snippets of memory, interspersed with the story of her own failing marriage (I didn't find these elements as strong as those about her relationship with her mother).
I'll definitely be looking out for what McColl writes next.
I'll definitely be looking out for what McColl writes next.
November 1, 2019
A book on mother loss that is simple and stark while also beautiful. Sarah’s capturing of her disintegrating marriage on the edges of her mother’s decline hit close to home in a very personal and gut-wrenching way. While our stories are a bit different, her observations and candidness confirmed that we are not alone in what we experience through the various levels of grief and loss.
April 23, 2019
4.5 stars, rounding up. Aching, lovely, understated. I want to call it a pleasure to read, even if that feels not quite right to say about a memoir of grief. I have missed McColl's writing for many years now, and am so glad to have it with me again.
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January 17, 2019Here is my review of this book on NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/01/16/685099...
February 11, 2019
This was a story that mirrored both my grief for my mother and my grief for my marriage more than anything I’ve read. What a poetic, lyrical and luscious book. And the experience of recognizing myself and reading my previously unarticulated thoughts and feelings- true gifts. ❤️🙏🏼
July 17, 2021
A book by my favourite (former) blogger, Sarah McColl of Pink of Perfection, which I was afraid to read for far too long. It turns out that while my life is different, and my choices would probably be very different, Sarah still managed to take me along with her beautifully written story.
June 18, 2019
i picked this book up when i renewing my library card. i saw a paul lisicky quote on the back, saw the slim bind, and that it was a grief memoir in fragments that weave through time. hell ya. while reading, i could tell this is sarah’s first book, and a book written during a nonfiction mfa program (with jo ann beard first in the thank yous!) ~ it’s jam-packed and flourishy with big life moments and almost-cliche life realizations. mccoll’s descriptions and memories of her mother create a lovingly crafted tribute, a vessel full of this lively woman to live forever and be treasured by strangers like me who just randomly checked this book out. i felt a little lost during the husband-breakup sections, which i rushed through to get back to parts on her mother. i winced when sarah delighted in police officers flirting with her, and randomly mentioning that a past crush is now trans, but maybe i’m just nit-picky. i read like a sponge when she described a childhood of going to the neighborhood pool with her mom, and driving home in a wet swim suit, pulling a clean t-shirt over her head as a nightgown back at home. the writing in here is gorgeous and careful, and i enjoyed the lyrical, collage-like form which moves at a fast pace. however, sarah spends the book telling us that people say she’s just like her mother, yet this book seemed to prove otherwise for me.
September 22, 2019
Somehow McColl makes her mother's illness and death and falling out of love with her husband feel both hopeful, joyful, and funny. I laughed. I cried. I came back to life as a writer in reading this book.
July 31, 2023
“I loved my mother, and she died,” writes Sarah McColl, “Is that a story?”
Obviously it’s a story I’d want to read, and I loved it—the lyricism, the wit, the cooking, the relationship between mother and daughter, and most of all the interesting person created in these pages.
Here are some of the many passages that I particularly admired:
When people say, tell me about your mother, which they never do, I say she was my spiritual home. So to say I miss her—which I often did in the months following her death, because I did not have the language to express my roiling grief—was a polite way of calling myself a cosmic orphan, like a moon whose planet has fallen out of orbit.
“Hope now?” [her mother] wrote on a small piece of lined, monogrammed notepaper in her thirties. “That I won’t just die and become fertilizer—that I won’t be forgotten as if I had never lived. That I’ll give good people to the world.”
Her mother: “I think the healthily vain woman looks at her bare, God-given physical self, accepts it, shows her love for herself by making the most of her best features, and then gets on with living.”
I wanted to know if she’d been in love with the first person she slept with. She found this a dumb question.
“Of course,” she said. “What about the second person,” I asked. “Sarah,” she said, weary of explaining the obvious. “Of course not.”
My mother insisted she didn’t care about food. In fact, she never had cared, would have happily sustained herself on buttered toast and tea were it not for the hungry mouths of a family and the required ritual of a meal. “Don’t get your ego involved with cooking for me,” she warned. But sometimes she requested seconds, and those nights sent me upstairs, fist-pumping in triumph.
There is one way to slow a story as it speeds toward its inevitable end, and that is to linger in the scene. There was no other purpose for a meal than this: for my mother and me to unfold our napkins in our laps and sit side by side until the sun sank behind the barn and I rose to clear our plates, empty or not, and switch on the overhead light so we could stay and stay and stay.
My mother and I sat at the table in her darkened kitchen. She would not outlive her husband, she told me. She would not move into a condo by the ocean someday, or sew a slipcover for a loveseat in the tropical fabric she’d already selected. She would know only one grandchild. She would not, she said, grow old in the way she had imagined. She would not grow old at all. “I need to be able to say these things to someone,” she said, and so I listened.
“It makes me very sad to think of my precious, luscious daughter reading about drug therapies. Pursue happiness, pleasure, and sensual delight! Cook, ride your bike, pick out your spring clothes. Just live harder! That is the medicine.”
Obviously it’s a story I’d want to read, and I loved it—the lyricism, the wit, the cooking, the relationship between mother and daughter, and most of all the interesting person created in these pages.
Here are some of the many passages that I particularly admired:
When people say, tell me about your mother, which they never do, I say she was my spiritual home. So to say I miss her—which I often did in the months following her death, because I did not have the language to express my roiling grief—was a polite way of calling myself a cosmic orphan, like a moon whose planet has fallen out of orbit.
“Hope now?” [her mother] wrote on a small piece of lined, monogrammed notepaper in her thirties. “That I won’t just die and become fertilizer—that I won’t be forgotten as if I had never lived. That I’ll give good people to the world.”
Her mother: “I think the healthily vain woman looks at her bare, God-given physical self, accepts it, shows her love for herself by making the most of her best features, and then gets on with living.”
I wanted to know if she’d been in love with the first person she slept with. She found this a dumb question.
“Of course,” she said. “What about the second person,” I asked. “Sarah,” she said, weary of explaining the obvious. “Of course not.”
My mother insisted she didn’t care about food. In fact, she never had cared, would have happily sustained herself on buttered toast and tea were it not for the hungry mouths of a family and the required ritual of a meal. “Don’t get your ego involved with cooking for me,” she warned. But sometimes she requested seconds, and those nights sent me upstairs, fist-pumping in triumph.
There is one way to slow a story as it speeds toward its inevitable end, and that is to linger in the scene. There was no other purpose for a meal than this: for my mother and me to unfold our napkins in our laps and sit side by side until the sun sank behind the barn and I rose to clear our plates, empty or not, and switch on the overhead light so we could stay and stay and stay.
My mother and I sat at the table in her darkened kitchen. She would not outlive her husband, she told me. She would not move into a condo by the ocean someday, or sew a slipcover for a loveseat in the tropical fabric she’d already selected. She would know only one grandchild. She would not, she said, grow old in the way she had imagined. She would not grow old at all. “I need to be able to say these things to someone,” she said, and so I listened.
“It makes me very sad to think of my precious, luscious daughter reading about drug therapies. Pursue happiness, pleasure, and sensual delight! Cook, ride your bike, pick out your spring clothes. Just live harder! That is the medicine.”
March 19, 2019
Joy Enough is a gentle memoir, crafting an experience of daughter-hood and womanhood that is both hopeful and heartbreaking. McColl holds our hand as she navigates, not only stages of grief, but variations of grief. It is not that we wouldn't know the pain of losing someone, it is that we are put in a place of losing this parent, this husband. The memoir is expertly crafted to let us feel grief as we each do, while still feeling connected to the author, her loss and her own process. Beautifully written and carefully constructed, Joy Enough was an enchanting read.
March 19, 2019
Broken thoughts that were confusing and the telling of past and present was constantly changing and made me loopy. It was a sad and truthful story and I give the author credit for her bravery and also some things she wrote beautifully.
April 3, 2019
TY @latimes for bringing this memoir into my life. Joy Enough by first time author Sarah McColl is the most beautiful first love story - that crazy, beautiful, deep love for your mom. This memoir took me alongside a beautiful journey. From her childhood memories, her moms sage advice (including learning how to make several meals out of one roasted chicken), while also learning above all that she no longer loved her husband and facing the grief of losing her mom to cancer. I appreciated her raw honesty and how she weaved her love for her mother with becoming a woman able to face the disintegration of her marriage, her longing for a child, and her dream of becoming a writer. Perhaps the death of the person you love most teaches you to stop wasting time doing things you don’t love - and reminds you who you want to be.
My favorite nuggets of wisdom:
1. “Having a mother who loves you is a lucky stroke. Like being born beautiful or rich. In fact it is the biggest advantage of all.”
2. “People will tell you everything you need to know about them in the first 20 minutes ... the key is to pay attention.”
3. It is lonelier to be with someone you no longer love, than to be alone.
4. “Good judgment is based on experience. Experience is based on bad judgement.”
5. Love is madness. Scientifically proven - when we fall in love, our brains are literally insane.
6. In love ... duration does not equal significance. #JoyEnough #SarahMcColl #BookWorm
My favorite nuggets of wisdom:
1. “Having a mother who loves you is a lucky stroke. Like being born beautiful or rich. In fact it is the biggest advantage of all.”
2. “People will tell you everything you need to know about them in the first 20 minutes ... the key is to pay attention.”
3. It is lonelier to be with someone you no longer love, than to be alone.
4. “Good judgment is based on experience. Experience is based on bad judgement.”
5. Love is madness. Scientifically proven - when we fall in love, our brains are literally insane.
6. In love ... duration does not equal significance. #JoyEnough #SarahMcColl #BookWorm
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 1, 2021
This was a book about loss — loss of a mother and loss of a marriage. I felt a lot of compassion and could relate with the loss of the mother but can’t say the same about the loss of the marriage. I guess it’s because I have lost my mom but am still married. I also felt like I couldn’t really understand why she left her husband. I am more of a thick or thin kind of person and couldn’t relate to walking away from my spouse. I might have liked this book better if she had focused on her relationship with her mom.
I didn’t love the style of writing — quick snippets about a number of different topics. It wasn’t hard to follow but it was hard to get and stay engaged with so much jumping around.
I thought this book was ok but I was trying to squeeze it in and finish it in 2020 so I was watching the NYE show and reading about the author’s decisions about burying her mom. It was a strange juxtaposition and probably not the right time for me to read this book.
I didn’t love the style of writing — quick snippets about a number of different topics. It wasn’t hard to follow but it was hard to get and stay engaged with so much jumping around.
I thought this book was ok but I was trying to squeeze it in and finish it in 2020 so I was watching the NYE show and reading about the author’s decisions about burying her mom. It was a strange juxtaposition and probably not the right time for me to read this book.
March 8, 2021
This is a beautifully-written portrait of intertwined lives and the cataclysm that's hard to accept when one leaves too soon. The parts about the author's childhood and her mother's life are honest and heartfelt, and though I had a hard time relating to the crumbling-marriage-related parts (being one of those people who gets lost interest in, and never does the losing of the interest 😅), I still appreciated the starkness with which they were shared. At times the narrative style where distant past flows into present flows into near-past may feel disjointed, but in the end it's perfect because scratching your head wondering "wait are we talking about now? or the past again?" is exactly what grief is like—non-linear jerkface that it is, approaching and receding in an equally erratic way. I can tell the author put her entire soul into this and to answer her question about whether it's even a story, I say "yes."
May 31, 2020
*3.5 stars! Quite frankly, this book brought back feelings I have locked away for quite some time. Not sure if it was because I have lost someone with a similar condition, but I felt some old wounds tear open in the need for some new attention now as an adult. The story takes you through the author’s life as she experiences two great losses: marriage and losing her mother to cancer. There was a little confusion due to back and forth with time shifts, but I really liked how the book was separated by seasons; it almost set the mood for each chapter. The author writes eloquently with snippets of deep knowledge in philosophy, customs and religion. The only thing I struggled with in this book was her lack of perseverance to fight for her marriage, even though it was “young love”.
Overall, this book was about self-discovery and beautifully written! Also, a very quick read.
Overall, this book was about self-discovery and beautifully written! Also, a very quick read.
January 22, 2019
I really enjoyed this book !
Sarah McColl writes with such honest feelings of the journey of her mother's passing and the layers of feelings one has when they know someone they love will soon be gone .A long goodby! A excellent writing and sharing as the daughter goes through the process .I could only admire the author for writing this great book and walking through the day to day activities and coming to understand what a wonderful lady the mother was .
Writing down such day to day feelings and activities made me stop and take the time to remember meny memories of my own Mother !
Thank you Sarah McColl for writing this book! I received this book on Good Reads for a honest review .Published by LiveRight Publishing.
Sarah McColl writes with such honest feelings of the journey of her mother's passing and the layers of feelings one has when they know someone they love will soon be gone .A long goodby! A excellent writing and sharing as the daughter goes through the process .I could only admire the author for writing this great book and walking through the day to day activities and coming to understand what a wonderful lady the mother was .
Writing down such day to day feelings and activities made me stop and take the time to remember meny memories of my own Mother !
Thank you Sarah McColl for writing this book! I received this book on Good Reads for a honest review .Published by LiveRight Publishing.
February 28, 2019
3.5
I want to rate this higher. I do. It’s personal and real and relatable. McColl is vulnerable and raw and has talent. The trouble for me came in the structure, the short passages that seemed forced together to impart certain meaning. And the weight of the book felt too front/beginning heavy, not balanced in emotion or impact throughout.
I think McColl could have trusted her readers more. That she could have told the narrative in a chronological and linear way without losing any artistry and that may instead have resulted in more compassion from at least this reader. I am not disinterested in her story, both the universality of loss in different forms and the processing of that loss, but this book didn’t make me truly feel anything as I read it.
I want to rate this higher. I do. It’s personal and real and relatable. McColl is vulnerable and raw and has talent. The trouble for me came in the structure, the short passages that seemed forced together to impart certain meaning. And the weight of the book felt too front/beginning heavy, not balanced in emotion or impact throughout.
I think McColl could have trusted her readers more. That she could have told the narrative in a chronological and linear way without losing any artistry and that may instead have resulted in more compassion from at least this reader. I am not disinterested in her story, both the universality of loss in different forms and the processing of that loss, but this book didn’t make me truly feel anything as I read it.
February 20, 2019
What does it mean when someone says, “You are just like your mother”? Sarah McColl tries to find out after she can no longer ask. In a series of memories, Sarah tries to understand how she is like her mom as she comes to terms with both the loss of her mom and the demise of her marriage. The memories are of first memories, growing up in Dallas, an across country move to Massachusetts, her love story and the story of her mom’s fight with cancer. It is an artfully written account that is over way too soon. In the end, Sarah answers her question and makes the drastic changes she needs to in order to live the life she wants.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews