Widower's House: A Study in Bereavement, or How Margot and Mella Forced Me to Flee My Home [Hardcover]

John Bayley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

A hilarious comedy of errors and a delightful love story by England's most improbable sex symbol.

Little did retired professor John Bayley realize when he lost Iris Murdoch, his beloved wife of forty-four years, that life would never be the same again. First came thousands of sympathy notes from lovers of Murdoch's novels and fans of Bayley's own poignant memoir, Elegy for Iris. But more alarming were the hundreds of calls from seemingly well-meaning women, many of whom rang Bayley's doorbell in Oxford, bearing cakes, casserole dishes, and delivering pep talks designed to cheer up the widower of their dreams.

Here, in Widower's House: A Study in Bereavement or How Margot and Mella Forced Me to Flee My Home, Bayley tells the painful, inspirational, and ultimately uplifting story of how he had to grapple with his fate as a man by beginning life anew in his mid-seventies. Like millions of other widows and widowers, Bayley, as he relates it, found himself emotionally unprepared for the responsibilities and burdens that confront people who suddenly find themselves alone. He hadn't realized how differently you are treated when you are not part of a couple, and how you must learn to respond to friends, family members, and total strangers in completely different ways.

With the reassuring, compassionate voice of Iris still a mournful obbligato in the background, Bayley describes the pitfalls a widower must face as he ventures out into the newly virgin world beyond his front door. Finding comfort in recording the day-to-day calamities that marked his reentry into the real world, Bayley uses surprising humor—reflected here in the vivid depictions of his new suitors, Margot and Mella—to get him through his darkest days.

Melodic, irrepressible, and comically comforting, Widower's House, with its heartwarming and surprisingly romantic ending, will reveal yet a new side of the man who has become England's most unlikely symbol of masculine virility.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following the February 1999 death of his wife of 44 years, novelist Iris Murdoch (whose lapse into Alzheimer's he chronicled in his bestselling Elegy for Iris), Bayley just wanted to live undisturbed, as "a widower in my own house." Yet he can't seem to get any peace and quiet with all the widows coming around an old friend of Iris's, a former student and hundreds of Murdoch fans who admire his sensitive account of his wife's decline and consider him the widower of their dreams. Bayley goes along, playing a passive but willing victim of their "well-meaning persecution," which involves household chores and chat as well as intimate companionship. (Perhaps the gentleman doth protest too much?) All the while, he's musing on the lack of a job description for widowerhood "being bereaved was not a career" while coming to terms with its unpredictability. Behind this curtain, another more subtle drama is unfolding: Bayley is letting go of his life with Murdoch. At first, his writing is filled with anecdotes about life with Iris, but by the end of the book, he's realizing he can't even picture the pre-Alzheimer's Iris anymore and that, in fact, he'd never really wanted to marry her. As Iris recedes, Bayley takes hold of his life again and remarries. Bayley's style is arch and self-critical, rather like that of one of Barbara Pym's skittish Oxford dons (no coincidence: Bayley, a literary critic, is a retired Oxford professor and Pym fan). Although precious at times, this memoir is engaging. (June)Forecast: Though too dark to become a mainstream pick-me-up for widowers, this may well become a letlles lettres classic.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bayley, an accomplished literary critic and Oxford don, was married to the novelist Iris Murdoch for 44 years. Following Elegy for Iris (LJ 12/98) and Iris and Her Friends (LJ 10/15/99), this memoir is Bayley's third attempt to exorcise his grief over her death. As the subtitle intimates, it is really too different stories: a long meditation on the nature of bereavement and an irreverent tale of Bayley's efforts to escape the attentions of two designing women. Bayley's style is conversational yet elegant; his polished prose is sprinkled with literary and historical allusions, ranging from Viking history to the Booker Prize. Murdoch fans should be warned, however, that while the author recalls intimate details of his life with Iris, the book's focus rests squarely on Bayley's struggle with widowerhood. A pleasant, interesting read, this book is recommended for larger literature collections.
- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393025616
• ISBN-13: 978-0393025613
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,059,433 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Two kind women and one prickly widower, August 11, 2001

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Widower's House: A Study in Bereavement, or How Margot and Mella Forced Me to Flee My Home (Hardcover)

Literary critic John Bayley, husband of novelist Iris Murdoch and her devoted caregiver during the several years that she was infirm with Alzheimer's until her death last year, has written several personal and revealing books on the last days and the death of his wife. This is the third of his trilogy.

Bayley says early that after his wife's death, he felt afraid, and really quite unable to cope. Even old friends seemed frightening: "All old friends were now threats." Of his wife's effect on him he writes, "And although Iris was unaware of it in the old days, before she was ill I was always under her protection." A catastrophe, then, has occurred; he is alone in the world, and scared of the world. But she is gone, and he finds himself in demand, the object of solicitous attention and effort  but unable or unwilling to value the people, especially the women, who offer it. Of his situation he writes that widowers "don't lead lives. They wait for something to happen. And when something does happen, it becomes a muddle from which at once they have to try to escape." In fact, Bayley writes that he wants solitude, not company, but it is company that he is warmly and enthusiastically offered.

An old family friend, a widow, "Margot," extends courtesy, warmth, and a variety of selfless kindnesses to him. Margot brings him casseroles. Bayley confides to his reader that he dislikes casseroles, but it is an unendearing confession. Eventually he becomes reacquainted with "Mella," an enigmatic and unlucky young woman, a former student, who not only makes a series of good attempts to clean his famously squalid house, but also passes many not at all unpleasant hours with him. These two women shower the recalcitrant Bayley with attention and affection. His response is for the most part lukewarm at best, and horrified -in a sort of quiet and not quite subtly misogynistic horror - at worst.

Bayley was lucky: he lived in what he freely describes as a physically chaotic and dirty mess, took minimal care of himself and - from the sound of his report - made paltry efforts toward others. Still and all, he was attended to with grace and kindness. He writes, "How much I had suffered lately from kindness, and from goodness." I would offer that widows will not see themselves or their situation in that of John Bayley - and may even want to give him a good shake.

The second half of the book is a series of interesting musings on grief and loss, with good literary allusion and references (Thomas Hardy, Kipling, Shakespeare, Milton, Virginia Woolf, and many more). In addition there is good description of his married life, Alzheimer's disease, and of his life as a caregiver. A mystery involving Margot and Mella is resolved, and for Bayley there is a happy ending.

A story that is worth reading for a look into the mind of its author. I'd disagree with its publisher, who claims on its cover that it is "a book to be give into anyone dealing with the catastrophic loss of a loved one. " Many widows' primary problem is acute social isolation, which was not experienced by Mr. Bayley - a man who, despite his protestations, was awfully lucky in the year of his widowerhood.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humorous, touching, and ultimately uplifting, December 6, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Widower's House: A Study in Bereavement, or How Margot and Mella Forced Me to Flee My Home (Hardcover)

Widower's House: A Study Of Bereavment, Or How Margot And Mella Forced Me To Flee My Home is a wistful memoir of wit and openness, as author John Bayley continues his comedy of errors from a fresh vantage point. Bayley recounts Margot and Mella, whom he found to be only barely tolerable before the death of his wife Iris; after, they threatened to drive him insane with unwanted comfort, consolation, and fierce competition for his time and attention. Humorous, touching, and ultimately uplifting as Bayley learns how to mourn his wife and find joy in the present, Widower's House is not to be missed. Also recommended are Baley's previous two memoirs, Elegy For Iris, and Iris And Her Friends.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How Many Books About the Late Iris Can He Write?, June 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Widower's House: A Study in Bereavement, or How Margot and Mella Forced Me to Flee My Home (Hardcover)

I'm sorry--I'm sure it's uplifting, for some, cathartic--but out of respect for one of my favorite novelists, who was a very PRIVATE person, I wish Bayley would keep his precious journaling to himself. Perhaps I, too, have kept diaries during and after the deaths of dear family members. Some of them quite well-known in their "fields." I have kept these to myself.

There seems to be a great need in Bayley to see himself as a special sort of caregiver, and to relegate Iris Murdoch to a sort of eccentric baby. You like reading this, you respect him for publishing it and getting money for it, you find it touching? Well, find five stars in place of my one.

I'm just, frankly, revolted, and horrified at all this. Perhaps I'm the only one! Though I got the book as well, just like the others, always looking for substance--of this I suppose there are different kinds. Has Mr. Bayley ever written a novel, I wonder? Or 26 of them? He's quite prolific in a small-book kind of way of late...you see where I'm going, and here I will stop, for I've seen grief drive men mad on more than one occasion.