62. A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas

One evening, Thomas’s husband, Richard, took their dog, Harry, out for a walk in New York City. When the doorman in the apartment building called Thomas to tell her that the dog came home alone and was in the elevator going up to their apartment without her husband, Thomas realized something seriously wrong had happened. Hit by a car and still bleeding in the city street, Richard would never be the same again. Traumatic head injury that led to extreme memory loss, rage, and paranoia forced Thomas to put her third husband into a brain injury home in upstate New York.

Stephen King endorses this memoir as one of the best he has ever read, and this truly is a spectacular exploration of what happens in a marriage when a partner is injured and must be taken care of. While this type of traumatic brain injury might have broken up a marriage, instead Thomas gives up her New York City apartment and moves upstate to be closer to her institutionalized husband. Visiting him several times a week and even bringing him to her new home for visits, this is both a heartbreaking and encouraging confessional memoir. Thomas is also the author of An Actual Life, which was reviewed at: http://www.tcpl.org/sarah/2007/02/5-actual-life-by-abigail-thomas.html.