MY HEART HAS NO HOME

by John R. Worsley ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 6, 2022

A widower reflects on life without his wife in this debut nonfiction work.

“Despite appearances,” writes screenwriter Worsley, “this is not, primarily, a book explaining death, grief, or loss—because I don’t consider myself an expert in any of those topics.” Indeed, although this thought-provoking book may be useful to others who’ve lost a spouse, Worsley focuses his writings on the intimate and specific details surrounding his own personal experiences without generalizing them to the world at large. Compounding the author’s grief was the unexpectedness of his wife’s sudden passing in 2021 from alcoholic hepatitis, which “gave us no real time together before she was abruptly gone,” he says; her condition deteriorated from “serious-yet-stable…to dead in maybe 14 hours.” This emotionally raw and vulnerable volume doesn’t shy away from sharing the events that led Amy to alcoholism, including her battles with PTSD (from her service in the U.S. Air Force in active war zones and from a harrowing post-surgery hospital experience), surviving sexual assault, and a previous marriage to a “brutal husband.” Worsley composed this book in the weeks and months following Amy’s death, and many passages emphasize how all-encompassing grief can be to those left behind, as mundane objects, such as houseplants, become powerful reminders of a loved one’s absence. Even elections brought back floods of memories, the author says, as he recalls Amy’s commitment to progressive political activism. One particularly poignant observation notes how words of comfort triggered survival guilt in the author as he clung to the idea that feeling “anything but pain without Amy is somehow a betrayal.”

The volume’s intimate writing style is reflective of its origins as Facebook posts, which Worsley wrote during his first six months of grief, and which served as a journal of his day-to-day thoughts. He presents them chronologically in these pages, with only minor edits to clean up typos; many are accompanied by a “Reflection” in which the author provides additional commentary, written in italics and printed perpendicular to the main text. This feature seems designed to keep the focus on the posts themselves, but the act of turning a book sideways may be cumbersome for some readers. The sidebars do, however, provide important details that contextualize the couple’s love story; readers discover, for example, how they were only married for eight years, but that Worsley had first fallen for Amy decades before in college. Although a self-described “book version of…Facebook” may alarm literary purists, Worsley is a skilled writer with a college degree in linguistics whose social media posts reflect a deft literary range that includes narrative storytelling, disjointed passages that poignantly capture anguish, and poetic verse (“I am more afraid of NOT grieving than I am of grief,” the book’s opening poem concludes). Amy’s voice also comes through in the work’s appendix material, which provides samples of her creative nonfiction writing, previously published in her local newspaper, the Hood River News. The author’s intimate writing style is complemented by ample photographs (mostly by the author), Bible verses, and inspirational quotes that capture the author’s deeply personal approach.

An intimate, emotionally raw journal of grief.

Pub Date: April 6, 2022

ISBN: 9781939698070

Page Count: 349

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 29, 2026

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR