Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and
Renewal by Julie Metz
A Fitting Tribute To Marriage
Heart-wrenching but triumphant.
--Glamour A lyrical, haunting, and utterly gripping memoir.
--Redbook
A dark, evocative memoir from a woman forced to come to terms with
her husbands death and the revelation of his infidelity.
--Shelf Awareness
A fascinating memoir.
--People

A delectable summer read.
--USA Today
She brings refreshing candor to a startling, painful tale.
--New York Times
A riveting memoir.
--Real Simple
...lyrical, moving prose.
--Working Mother
Metzs Perfection chronicles with lapidary precision one womans climb
back to happiness after not just a spouses death, but also the shocking
recognition that her life before that death was not what she had thought it
was. The journey is a painful one, but Ms. Metz is much the stronger for
having survived to recount it.
--Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia
Julie Metzs memoir of how her marriage unraveled after her mates
death is piercingly honest, haunting, and heartbreaking. Anyone who has
ever been in a bad relationship will over-identify.
--Susan Shapiro, author of Five Men Who Broke My Heart and Lighting Up
It is impossible to put Perfection down as we follow Julie Metz through
her true story of love, lies, loss, and moving forward. Her raw and brave
writing makes you want to cheer Metz on as she pieces her life back
together, one beautiful sentence at a time.
--Marian Fontana, author of A Widows Walk
This aching memoir of love, loss, and deception is candid and
compelling. I found myself rooting for Julie Metz in her search for a happy
`second life.
--Hilma Wolitzer, author of The Doctors Daughter and Hearts
Julie Metzs life changes forever on one ordinary January afternoon
when her husband, Henry, collapses on the kitchen floor and dies in her
arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old is the young widow in a
bucolic small town. And this is only the beginning. Seven months after
Henrys death, just when Julie thinks she is emerging from the worst of it,
comes the rest of it: She discovers that what had appeared to be the reality

of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from
her.
He loved you so much. Thats what everyone keeps telling her. Its true
that he loved Julie and their six-year-old daughter ebulliently and
devotedly, but as she starts to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life
without Henry in it, she learns that Henry had been unfaithful throughout
their twelve years of marriage. The most damaging affair was ongoing--a
tumultuous relationship that ended only with Henrys death. For Julie, the
only thing to do was to get at the real truth--to strip away the veneer of
perfection that was her life and confront each of the women beneath the
veneer.
Perfection is the story of Julie Metzs journey through chaos and
transformation as she creates a different life for herself and her young
daughter. It is the story of coming to terms with painful truths, of rebuilding
both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood. It is a story of
rebirth and happiness--if not perfection.
Personal Review: Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal
by Julie Metz
Sometimes reality overtakes the novel of our lives. Julie Metz was married
to Henry, and, as marriages go, it was ticking over pretty well. Both writers,
the pair shared house space in a rational way, and their little daughter Liza
was the adored center of their small universe. Henry and Julie didn't like
everything about each other, but marriage can become that way, a little
frayed around the edges, after 12 years. Can't it?
Then Henry died suddenly of a heart attack, and Julie's world crashed in
ways she never could have suspected. Or could she?
Within hours after Henry's demise, people close to Julie expunged
hundreds of passionate emails that he had rattled off to his several
amours, often consulting with one about the other, rarely mentioning his
wife or her feelings. So the only jarring notes that penetrated Julie's grief in
the early days of widowhood were the sound of a woman screaming in the
next room and the sight of her friend Cathy weeping inconsolably at
Henry's funeral. What was that about?
The revelations began to trickle in to her numbed consciousness a few
months after Henry's death. One friend told her about one of Henry's
women. Then another, about another. The total picture, emerging
gradually over the course of this well-crafted memoir, was damning. Henry
had been having sexual affairs from the beginning of their marriage and
most of the way through, the worst of which involved Cathy. Cathy was
supposedly Julie's buddy, part of a couple among the couples who lounged
around the pool, her daughter the best friend of Julie's Liza.

Painfully, the newly widowed Julie was forced to find a way to forget, if not
forgive, Henry. All the while she found herself "haunted" by the spirit of her
departed spouse, who she believed was rueful and longing to confess.
Julie decided to contact each of Henry's women, a process that was slow,
agonizing and sometimes surprising. Most of the ladies expressed their
culpability and made humble apologies to the wronged wife, except Cathy,
a poisonous personality in Julie's estimation, capable of keeping up the
pretense of friendship for years while having sex with Henry, sometimes in
the house while Julie worked, unheeding, in her writer's study.
The contacts made with Henry's women formed the basis for a healing
process that Julie had to go through in order to take the next steps in her
life. She talked to Christine by phone; from the other side of the country,
Christine tried to explain away her affair with Henry and befriend Julie, but
this attempt rang hollow. With only one of the many females on Henry's list
was Julie able to bond --- a dark, New Age-y type about whom Henry
obsessed and pouted. Julie learned that she could accept some of Eliana's
mystical mumbo-jumbo along with what seemed genuine remorse. Unlike
the other women embroiled in Henry's life, Eliana saw in Henry's death a
mandate to change her promiscuous ways and learn to face
consequences. In improving herself, Eliana offered a strange solace to the
woman she wronged.
Most women seek protective long-term mates, while many men derive ego
satisfaction from philandering, experimenting, or, as Henry described it,
"risk." A charming liar, Henry believed he could conjure up the perfect
woman, a petite brunette like Julie who would excite him like Cathy and
mentor him like Christine. Too bad. He never found his ideal. And left a
wife and daughter to comb through the mess he left behind, searching for
clues to his doomed and damaging explorations.
Metz's chronicle, subtitled "A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal," is a fitting
tribute to marriage, a dear-bought finding on what it means to make vows
and try to keep them. It is also a passionless examination of why the battle
of the sexes continues to rage, with each side having a different view of
the ultimate and desired outcome. Metz finds resolution with a new
partner, after many trial relationships and a long period of mourning,
humiliation, anger and shock.
Anyone who has been betrayed in love will empathize with the author's
anguish and take comfort in her resolve to let the past go and cherish the
present moment, which carries its own depth charge of perfection. "Men
and women can't live with each other easily," she concludes, "but we must
live together, otherwise we'll all die out. So we must muddle along...."
Henry was unwilling to muddle along, but Julie has learned how.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz 5 Star Customer Reviews
and Lowest Price!