Jim Beaver Life's That Way - Pre-Order Today!
Synopsis
A special book about the end of one life and the beginning of another.
Life's That Way is a modern-day Book of Job. In August 2003, Jim Beaver, a
character actor whom many know from the popular HBO series Deadwood,
and his wife Cecily learned what they thought was the worst news possible
their daughter Maddie was autistic. Then six weeks later the roof fell in
Cecily was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer.
Jim immediately began writing a nightly e-mail as a way to keep more than one hundred family and friends up to date about Cecily's condition. Soon four thousand people a day, from all around the world, were receiving them. Initially a cathartic exercise for Jim, the prose turned into an unforgettable journey for his readers.
Cecily died four months after being diagnosed, but Jim continued the
e-mails for a year after her diagnosis, revealing how he and Maddie coped
with Cecily's death and how they managed to move forward. Life's That Way is a compilation of those nightly e-mails. Jim's experience is universal for anybody who has lost a loved one. But Life's That Way is not solely about loss.
It is an immediate, day-by-day account of living through a nightmare but also of discovering the joy of a child, of being on the receiving end of unthinkable kindness, and of learning to navigate life anew. As Jim says, these are hard-won blessings.
But then again, life's that way.
Review
"Jim Beaver, the laconic character actor best known as the appealing
prospector, "Ellsworth," on Deadwood has written a compassionate,
funny, searing, and ultimately transcending memoir chronicling a year of
tragedy, grief, and survival that would send the strongest of men
even an ex-marine and West Texas preacher's son, to their knees.
As Jim puts it, "I'm no Job - though I think we went to the same school.
"That his story is so compulsively readable, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful
is due entirely to Jim's bracing honesty, dry humor, and deeply felt humanity.
Read this book, tell your friends about it, and then go hug your loved ones."
- Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize winner for The Kentucky Cycle.
Due out in
bookstore April 16, 2009
Pre-order your copy today!
