Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

 

Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life by Delia Ephron

Nonfiction - Memoir

2022

Read by Delia Ephron

Finished on November 25, 2024

Rating: 5/5 (Excellent)

Publisher's Blurb:

The bestselling, beloved writer of romantic comedies like You've Got Mail tells her own late-in-life love story, complete with a tragic second act and joyous resolution.

Delia Ephron had struggled through several years of heartbreak. She’d lost her sister, Nora, and then her husband, Jerry, both to cancer. Several months after Jerry’s death, she decided to make one small change in her life—she shut down his landline, which crashed her internet. She ended up in Verizon hell.

She channeled her grief the best way she knew: by writing a New York Times op-ed. The piece caught the attention of Peter, a Bay Area psychiatrist, who emailed her to commiserate. Recently widowed himself, he reminded her that they had shared a few dates fifty-four years before, set up by Nora. Delia did not remember him, but after several weeks of exchanging emails and sixties folk songs, he flew east to see her. They were crazy, utterly, in love.

But this was not a rom-com: four months later she was diagnosed with AML, a fierce leukemia.

In Left on Tenth, Delia Ephron enchants as she seesaws us between tears and laughter, navigating the suicidal lows of enduring cutting-edge treatment and the giddy highs of a second chance at love. With Peter and her close girlfriends by her side, with startling clarity, warmth, and honesty about facing death, Ephron invites us to join her team of warriors and become believers ourselves.

Bravo! I have not read any of Delia Ephron's books, but I loved her films, You've Got Mail and Michael. I received an advance audio copy of Left on Tenth a couple of years ago and have finally made the time to give it a listen. Usually, I don't care for an author reading their own books, but Ephron's narration is outstanding. She drew me in to her life, and inner circle of friends and family, making me feel welcome, which in turn made me care about her struggle and recovery from leukemia. Delia's sister, Nora, died from complications of acute myeloid leukemia, the same type of cancer that Delia was fighting. Delia goes into great detail of her grueling treatment, but not once is it repetitive or boring. She shares sweet stories about her lovely new husband, Peter, and sprinkles humor throughout her memoir. I never felt that she was keeping her readers at arm's length, but rather created an intimate room for us to visit. I loved her conversational delivery, her authenticity, and her complete lack of pretension; if there was any name-dropping, it was never a distraction. 

On Friendship:

All these different friendships. Mine with Eugene is both business and personal. These bonds matter. They are little homes. Places of safety. I am taking stock now. Friendship. God, I love my friends.

On Grief:

 The silence in the apartment is loud.

On Love:

And one single thing about all this: We were both seventy-two and age meant nothing. We were getting as loopy, as obsessed with each other as anyone falling under the spell of romance.

On Dogs:

Dogs dig deep into your heart. They’re in the room, on the floor, in your lap, on the bed, pestering you for treats, chewing your sock, burrowing under sheets, making you laugh, following you about, eating the cheese you left on the table, tearing in wild happy circles after baths. They trust. They are innocence. They are unjudgmental observers of your every unguarded moment.

As much as I loved this audiobook, I would like to own a print edition for a second reading. Highly recommend!

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.