Falling - The Story of One Marriage
Falling – The Story of One Marriage
By John Taylor
Copyright 1999, Random House
Recommendation: 4 out of 5 stars (library)
Falling – The Story of One Marriage, is a memoir by John Taylor about the agonzing decision to leave his wife after a 13 year marriage. While there are many memoirs about divorce, this one has two immediately unique aspects. First, it’s a divorce memoir written by the leaver. Which is voyeuristically refreshing. Seems most of the voices out there are from those that were left behind, who play catch up to have a final say in the matter. The second interesting bit is that it was written by a man. But not just any man. This book was written by John Taylor. If you are thinking “Oh the guitarist from Duran Duran…cool? “ I was wrong too. This book was written by the other John Taylor. The one who is married to Jeanette Walls. Having devoured her memoir The Glass Castle along with over two million other people, I couldn't help imagining her, all these years later, with the John Taylor of the book who struggles spiritually, emotionally and culturally with the agonizing decision to leave his wife.
I don’t know Jeanette, but I want to be friends with her because I feel like I know her from her book. And I had to pretend I was her friend in order to get through some parts of his story where he is exhaustingly self absorbed. Did she roll her eyes too? Or did she see through that aspect of him, as he occasionally does himself. At one point he reflects on soul searching he did with his tape recorder in hand and says “I couldn't stand the sound of my own voice, the hesitant narcissistic groping, the anguish and self-pity.” Which makes moments like that entirely readable.
Throughout John is brutally honest, and painfully forthcoming on his part in the coming apart. He describes the first time he cheated in a way that makes you hope that all men feel as low, slimy and violated as he did. Leaving his wife was far from easy for him, which somehow makes it feel like it was more of a right decision that staying. “We would have to work together to dissolve the marriage in a way we had never been able to do to sustain it. I saw all this with piercing clarity, and then I thought, But if we are capable of such delicate and complicated collaboration, maybe we should stay together after all.”
It’s heartbreaking, but not at all sad, I never cried or welled up with tears but I felt a surprising amount of empathy for him. He deeply loves his wife and misses his daughter, misses his life, but in the end it just can’t work. Helps that he is a truly gifted writer, and is so readable, even when he is unlikeable.
I imagine him waking up with Jeanette Walls, living with her now on a huge farm where they also care for her mother. I imagine them trading ideas over coffee, feeling spiritually, emotionally, intimately fulfilled and I wonder does he look at her and think “everything I went through was worth it to end up with her.” And even though they don’t meet at the end of Falling, it gives me hope that everything makes sense in the end, for all of us.
Recommendation: 4 out of 5 stars, Library Book Pick
