A real-life romantic comedy about getting dumped and getting over it
Isabel Gillies, the New York Times bestselling author of Happens Every Day, has written another irresistibly moving and funny memoir: A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story. When our story opens, it’s a dark and slushy winter in New York City, where Isabel is arriving by airplane from Ohio, two toddlers in tow, to move in with her parents; her husband has left her for another woman. In subsequent scene after hilarious scene, Isabel shares her valiant, misguided, and bumbling attempts to understand her own part in the disintegration of her marriage and to feel strong and loveable. And, one by one, she begins to cross items off a staggering single mom to-do list that includes: change last name, get bank account, get work, have breakdowns only in front of best friend and not in front of children, find rare preschool slot for son midyear in Manhattan, get along with three generations of family in tight quarters, find a man who can plant one great and romantic kiss, accept self, accept love, be happy.
She cries, she dates, she (and her mother and father and children) get the flu, and then, just when she least expects it, Isabel falls in love.
With humility and a refreshing sense of humor, Isabel stumbles many times but also laughs, forgives, discovers new treasures from old friends, marries again, and more than that, finds good love itself within and around her.
Praise for A Year and Six Seconds
“I’m writing this an hour after finishing Isabel Gillies’s stunning new memoir. So charmed, so enamored was I by this tale of love lost and found that I would have sat down to lavish it with praise the minute I put the book down, but I was weeping too hard. We all want to believe in second chances, in broken hearts mended, and at its core, this is a book about that kind of hope. But it is a hope tempered with reality: not a fairy tale by any means, but more moving, more poignant as a result. Brava.”
—Deborah Copaken Kogan, author of Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War and Hell Is Other Parents: And Other Tales of Maternal Combustion
“With the same self-effacing prose found in her debut, Gillies describes her journey from the pain of lost love to the land of the living with humor and compassion . . . Readers who enjoyed the author’s earlier memoir—and books like it—will find her saga engrossing and heartfelt . . . Readers will cheer along with the author, whose heart overflows in the conclusion of this enduring story of life after love.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Isabel Gillies gives us a story of unexpected romance, unfolding the story of her journey from divorce heartbreak and single motherhood to new love and family with genuine intimacy and humor.”
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The description of her young son a having a meltdown at the end of his father's visit was devastating. He tries to put his parent's hands together and begs his father not to leave. Gillies graciously writes how much this must have crushed her husband, but I could conjure up no sympathy for a man who could act so selfishly and with utter disregard for his family.
I do wish she would have gone into more detail about the difficulties of allowing the other woman into the lives of her children. I imagine that it would be heartbreaking to see her sons bond with the woman who aided and abetted her husband in the destruction of their intact home. I realize she did not have a real choice in the matter since her husband chose to marry his mistress, but I think it would be helpful for other betrayed wives going through similar situations to learn how she accomplished this monumental task.
Gillies is probably best known for her role in "Law and order." Although I am not an avid watcher of the show, I became interested in her memoir after reading a blurb about her story. This is definitely not a weepy-divorce type of book. Rather, it an optimistic account of overcoming the pain and discomfort of divorce--only to end up on the sunny side of life.
I found the writing candid, humorous, and down to earth. The memoir itself is very reminiscent of a diary, as Gillies reflects upon intimate issues. At one point, she even confesses to feeling unwanted--her ex-husband loves another woman, her mother is tired of seeing the constant ruckus in her apartment that comes from Isabel and her two children, her friends try to unsuccessfully match her up with potential suitors, and life in New York is giving her a hard time. It's the kind of memoir that is both interesting and highly relatable.
Written about her divorce and then finding love again. Most of the book is written about the year following her divorced. Read more
