The Year of the End: A Memoir of Marriage, Truth and Fiction

by Anne Theroux

Overview

'A moving and absorbing account' Adam Buxton

'Scorching ... a brave book' Helen Brown, Telegraph

'A wise and vivid memoir of a disintegrating marriage and a study of the role of the spouse in the life of a literary giant' Fiona Sturges, i Paper

18TH JANUARY 1990

Paul left today at 8am.

We had been married just over 22 years. The previous evening we had gone out to eat at a local restaurant, where we drank champagne and reminisced. In a short story which he wrote about that final evening of a marriage, the central characters talk wittily and poignantly about the explorer Sir Richard Burton and the sad, misunderstood wife who burnt his books.

The reality was different.

'This memoir is based on the diary I kept during 1990, the year that my first marriage came to an end.'

After 22 years, spent across four continents, with two children - Louis and Marcel - in 1990 Anne and Paul Theroux decided to separate. For that year, Anne - later a professional relationship therapist herself - kept a diary, noting not only her day-to-day experiences as a busy freelance journalist and broadcaster, but the contrasts in her feelings between despairing grief and hope for a new future.

With reflections on truth and fiction, literature and art, and the nature of marriage, alongside commentary on notable political and cultural events, and interviews with prominent writers of the time, including Kingsley Amis and Barbara Cartland, The Year of the End offers a unique insight into the unravelling of a relationship and the attempt to rebuild a life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785788239
Publisher:	Amberley Publishing
Publication date:	03/03/2022
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anne Theroux has spent much of her life as a journalist and broadcaster, predominantly at the BBC World Service, where among other things she was Head of Features and Arts for six years. From 1992 to 2016 she trained and worked as a relationship therapist.

Table of Contents

1 Once upon a time 1

2 August 1989 9

3 January 1990 25

4 February 43

5 March 59

6 April 75

7 May 89

8 June 103

9 July 123

10 August 137

11 September 145

12 October 165

13 November 181

14 December 197

15 Christmas 1990 and New Year 1991 219

16 That was the end 237

Postscript 243

Acknowledgements 244

Editorial Reviews

"Anne Theroux’s new memoir provides an introspective snapshot of her life after separating from well-known American novelist and travel author Paul Theroux... readers will connect to the vulnerable person trying to start all over again without losing herself. This is not an overly scandalous tale focusing on Paul and his blunders, but one about a human being who fell in love and out of love and everything that happened in between."

From the Publisher

2021-07-22
A former BBC journalist and broadcaster reflects on the last year of her two-decade marriage to acclaimed American travel writer Paul Theroux.

Long after their marriage ended, the author read this comment from her former husband in a published interview: “Writers choose their wives. They choose them for certain purposes. They need a specific kind of woman—protective and self-sacrificing types….What they want is a secretary, mother, a guardian of the gate.” Naturally, she felt compelled to reply. "If you had given me the job description in advance, I wouldn't have applied." Instead, she was married to the man, whom she met in Nairobi in 1967, for more than two decades and bore him two sons. This memoir, documenting the final year of their union, is based on a diary she kept in 1990 and then annotated with further memories and corrections later in the decade. The entry for Jan. 18: "Paul left today—the beginning of our six-month separation. I cried horribly as he was leaving. He cried too then left in a taxi and I spent a miserable day, drinking, smoking a joint and hoping I can pull myself together tomorrow.” As she suspected—and later confirmed, with the uncomfortable assistance of her sons—he was with another woman; it was not his first affair, but she, too, had been unfaithful. Still, their phone calls could be so warm, it seemed their love must prevail. "Talking to Paul was like talking to myself; we used words that no-one else knew, laughed at unnamed memories, shared the network of associations that sprang to the other's mind at the mention of a person or place." The author’s insightful commentary on her attempt to cope with so much uncertainty, loneliness, and suffering includes many lovely observations—e.g., "Trying new recipes is always a sign of hope." "There is nothing like an early morning walk on a sunny day to remind you that life is worth living."

A sensitive, thoughtful document of the immediate pain of separation and betrayal and its gradual mellowing into rue.

Kirkus Reviews