Good in a Crisis: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Margaret Overton (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 31, 2012

Honest, hopeful, hilarious—the smartest, most knowing account of a woman and the calamities of midlife since Nora Ephron’s wryly humorous Heartburn.

During the four years of physician Margaret Overton’s acrimonious divorce, she dated widely and indiscriminately, determined to find her soul mate and live happily ever after. But then she discovered she had a brain aneurysm. She discovered it at a particularly awkward moment on a date with one of many Mr. Wrongs.

Good in a Crisis is Overton's laugh-out-loud funny story of dealing with the most serious of life's problems: loss of life, loss of love, loss of innocence. It's about spirituality, self-delusion, even sheer stupidity. It's written from a physician's perspective, but it's not about medicine, per se; it's about coming of age in adulthood, an effort to help others through the awful events that can cluster in midlife. She does this with laughter and the recognition that you may come out the other end, as Overton did, definitely humbled... and only slightly smarter.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (January 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608197646
• ISBN-13: 978-1608197644
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Anesthesiologist Overton appears to be very good in a crisis. She is certainly skilled at crafting a diverting memoir. But she is not good at identifying a good man. Still, a person can’t be good at everything. She is also a respected physician who has, by her own account, raised two well-adjusted daughters and who keeps her middle-aged body fit via bicycling. However, when it comes to selecting male companionship, she proves again and again and, uh, again that her radar or sonar or common sense is off-line, down due to a disconnect between hope and reality. To help overcome the negative effects of a 20-year marriage that ended in a bitter divorce, Overton began journaling. She chronicled not just the I’ll-get-you-before-you-get-me revelations about her philandering ex but also her several less-than-successful experiences with cyberdating and vacation romance. Even though twenty-first-century America asserts the opposite, it took her a very long time to get it through her head that a woman can be OK without a mate. --Donna Chavez

Review

"'Men might find you attractive, but only until they find out how smart you are.’  This unhusbandly remark will resonate with a great many women who’ve felt it even if they haven’t heard it in so many words.  It’s typical of the fierce candor Margaret Overton summons – along with an intact sense of humor and a doctor’s eye for detail – to tell the story of how she survived a perfect storm of disasters and ended up stronger, wiser and ready for a kinder future."—Rosellen Brown

"Good in a Crisis is a riotous romp through the messy, confusing, wonderful labyrinth of life.  If you don’t laugh, cry, sing, and shout while reading this book, call the coroner because you’re already dead.  Oh, and I’m nominating Overton for sainthood.  She earned it." —Larry Dossey, M.D., author, The Power of Premonitions; executive editor, Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing

"What a story. Margaret Overton's Good in A Crisis is one harrowing episode after another. But as this grief-stricken anesthesiologist recounts her pain--of divorce, of illness, of bad dates and worse--she keeps tapping us right in the funny bone. The effect is quite moving and startling."—James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street

"Margaret Overton is a truly funny,  nervy, and insightful writer.  Despite her personal losses, she and her wonderful memoir are both winners. I love Good in a Crisis! "—Hilma Wolitzer, author of An Available Man 

 

"[A] smart and clear-eyed narrative of one woman’s midlife divorce…. Overton managed to overcome her many trials as she imparts with humor and some high-handed poise."—Publishers Weekly

"[A] grimly hilarious journey…. brutally funny reading about midlife coming-of-age."—Kirkus Reviews

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (January 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608197646
• ISBN-13: 978-1608197644
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Maximum Use of a Great Crisis February 4, 2012

By Sharon Lippincott

Format:Hardcover

This masterfully written memoir should be required reading for lots of people: anyone thinking about getting married, anyone already married and thinking about getting divorced. Women in the process of divorce. Anyone who may ever get cerebral aneurism. Mothers. Daughters. Friends and relatives of all the above. In other words, this book has something of value for nearly anyone.

Margaret Overton was in mid-life, with a successful career in anesthesiology, two teenage daughters, and a condo she hated when she decided one Memorial Day morning to divorce her husband. The decision did not happen in a vacuum, but it was sudden. In the ensuing four years, through her experience with Match.com, she dated a long succession of creepy losers. They clearly demonstrate the reason why so many mature singles avoid that experience. She had sex with some, was raped by one, and somehow lived to write about it.

When her legal fees topped "several hundred thousand," after more than four years of endless delays -- some instigated by her soon-to-be ex and others by her own need to go to trial because of her inability (as a physician!) to obtain private health insurance -- she threw in the towel. "I just want out," she told her attorney. Sanity was more important than prevailing.

While in the throes of her first post-marital sexual encounter, she suffered a cerebral aneurysm. She's one of the lucky ones. She recovered, with no discernible damage, but only after more close calls and an experimental procedure. In case that wasn't enough, her widowed mother experienced a severe health crisis, one of her dearest friends died of brain cancer, and her daughter had a near-fatal skateboarding accident. The list reads like the Book of Job.

That's the stuff of which the story is woven.... The threads that weave it are story and wisdom.

"The process of divorce requires that we develop a narrative, an attempt to sum up the `truth' of the marriage and its dissolution, as if things might be put straight in some cosmic manner with enough words, delivered just so, to enough people, with just the right emphasis."

This book is that narrative, that putting of words in just the right order, with just the right emphasis, and quite remarkably, she does it with such deftness and gently self-effacing humor that I was alternately laughing and fuming at the horror and injustice of it all. Her story structure is solidly crafted, with key elements, like her departed friend Paul, scattered artfully throughout the narrative, deepening the insight ever so gradually, keeping the slope climbable without dismounting from your bike. She embellishes the structure with stunningly vivid descriptions that pasted whole paragraphs permanently in mind.

This is not a book filled with epiphanies, nor is it filled with step-by-step guidelines for surviving divorce or medical emergencies. It is a book filled with evolving wisdom and offering deep compassion and hope. Margaret Overton took the advice she quotes at the outset. She has not wasted the opportunities offered by a good crisis. She surmounted her obstacles and emerged with equanimity. In this volume, she holds out a strong hand of courage to lead others along the path she has trodden, graciously allowing them to learn whatever they may from her experience.

The author bio states that this is Overton's first book. I look forward to her next.

This review was originally published at StoryCircleBookReviews: [...] Read more ›

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "I was a mess." February 12, 2012

By E. Bukowsky HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In her ironically titled memoir, "Good in a Crisis," Margaret Overton bares her soul about her self-destructive behavior during and after her "brutal, traumatizing, and awful" divorce from Stig, her philandering spouse of twenty years. After knowing for years that Stig had cheated on her, Margaret finally leaves him on Memorial Day, 2002. Their daughters, Bea and Ruthann, were nineteen and sixteen at the time. Although Margaret and Stig rarely fought and spent little time together, she grew tired of her husband's dismissive and condescending attitude. What she did not yet realize was that, for her, divorce would become "a public tearing asunder." Her eventually-to-be-ex drags out the proceedings and does whatever he can to inflict as much damage as possible. One of Overton's friends declares that the Francis Ford Coppola movie "'Apocalypse Now' [ostensibly about the horrors of war and its attendant violence] is really a metaphor for divorce." Makes sense, in a way.

The author changes the names of living people and alters details and events to protect individuals' privacy, but she is amazingly candid about her low self-esteem and poor judgment in men. She quickly enters the world of Internet dating, and subsequently meets one "pathetic loser" after another. Why does Margaret, a skilled and capable anesthesiologist in her forties, think so little of herself? After all, she has attentive and close friends, a loving mother and sisters, and two great kids. It turns out that her ego was in tatters. She felt unlovable and was willing to try anything in order to feel whole again. To make matters worse, Margaret experiences an alarming health crisis that forces her to confront her own mortality....

"Good in a Crisis" is a cathartic exercise (lots of tears and self-pity) that is enlivened by the author's irreverent, hilarious, and self-deprecating humor. In addition, Overton offers serious advice to couples who are about to split: Do not trash your spouse to your kids; be careful not to go off the deep end financially, psychologically, and socially; hire a no-nonsense lawyer; and take as much time as you need to heal before you make life-changing choices. Some readers will be turned off by the detailed and cringe-inducing descriptions of Overton's encounters with a series of insanely unsuitable men. However, Margaret's frank assessment of her "marital decompression" and its aftermath has value. It demonstrates that everyone, no matter how well-educated and accomplished, is vulnerable when his or her marriage ends. As Overton informs us so eloquently, the process of shedding one's mate may be necessary but, for a while, it can adversely affect a person's physical well-being, mental stability and capacity to make sound decisions. Read more ›

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Painfully honest memoir February 5, 2012

By Shelleyrae TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Margaret Overton is an anesthesiologist but this is not the story of her career, it is a personal account of her midlife crisis. It begins with her divorce after twenty years of marriage and the challenges that follow. Though her marriage is no real loss, Margaret is hurt as her husband flaunts his much younger mistress, the latest in a long line of women, she discovers, and makes financial arrangements unnecessarily difficult. Margaret doesn't expect to be alone for long though and with her daughters on the verge of independence, she begins to search for a companion. In the middle of her first amorous encounter, she experiences a blinding headache which leads to the diagnosis of an aneurysm. While she is incredibly lucky to survive and the aneurysm is repaired, there are lingering, if subtle, psychological effects. Health regained and with a new appreciation for life, Overton throws herself back into the dating pool, but the waters are murky and Margaret quickly finds herself out of her depth.
While she is honest about her propensity for making increasingly poor choices, her lack of self awareness is startling during this period. An intelligent woman, she is nevertheless almost willfully naive, unable to recognise the warning signs her dates reveal. Overton seems determined to reveal the ridiculousness amongst the 'horror', and there are truly moments of real pain. I was shocked be her reaction to one particular incident where her response is not at all what I would expect from an educated, mature woman. There is a conversation in the course of the book between Margaret and her dear friend and colleague Neil, which Margaret recounts regarding a theory about the arrested maturity of doctors which I think rings true in general and certainly in Overton's case.... Margaret sense of self preservation is more like an adolescents rather than a middle age woman's, when it comes to dating.
In amongst her adventures in dating online, Margaret faces several other crisis, the deaths of her close friends - Neil and Paul, her mother's rapid decline into dementia, her daughter's serious accident and the rebuilding of her career. The six years or so that Margaret's memoir recounts were undeniably tough, a series of crisis that Overton nevertheless overcame.

Good in a Crisis is an entertaining memoir but for me it was not the light-hearted, laugh out loud story the blurb led me to expect. That Margaret is able to look back on this difficult period of her life and find the humour in it, is admirable. Good in a Crisis is painfully honest and self deprecating, rarely is Margaret depicted in a good light, but I can imagine it could be a comfort and lesson for other woman floundering after life altering circumstances in midlife. Read more ›