Life's That Way: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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Description

In August 2003, Jim Beaver, an actor known for his roles in both Deadwood and Supernatural, and his wife Cecily learned that their daughter Maddie was autistic. Six weeks later, Cecily was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Jim began writing a nightly email as a way of keeping friends and family up to date about Cecily's condition. Cecily died four months after being diagnosed, but Jim continued the emails for a year. Life's That Way is a compilation of those emails; a day-by-day account of what it's like to live through a nightmare and to navigate life anew.

Reviews

aTo have known and read this man over these years, reveals to me I knew nothing of what love could and should be.a
aEdward Asner
aWhen this journal first appeared, I learned to keep a jumbo-size box of tissues at the ready. You will crya and laughaas Jim unwraps his unvarnished heart and soul. It will evoke memories of everyone who ever touched your heart and remind you to talk from your heart to the people who mean something to you.a
aRussell Friedman, coauthor of "The Grief Recovery
Handbook" and "When Children Grieve" "Jim Beaver, the laconic character actor best known as the appealing prospector, aEllsworth, a on "Deadwood" has written a compassionate, funny, searing, and ultimately transcending memoir chronicling a year of tragedy, grief, and survival that would send the strongest of men, even an ex-marine and West Texas preacheras son, to their knees. As Jim puts it, aIam no Job a though I think we went to the same school.a That his story is so compulsively readable, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful is due entirely to Jimas bracing honesty, dry humor, and deeply felt humanity. Read this book, tell your friends about it, and then go hug your loved ones.a
a Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize winner for "The Kentucky Cycle,"
"Jim Beaver, the laconic character actor best known as the appealing prospector, aEllsworth, a on "Deadwood" has written a compassionate, funny, searing, and ultimately transcending memoir chronicling a year of tragedy, grief, and survival that would send the strongest of men, even an ex-marine and West Texas preacheras son, to their knees. As Jim puts it, aIam no Job a though I think we went to the same school.a That his story is so compulsively readable, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful is due entirely to Jimas bracing honesty, dry humor, and deeply felt humanity. Read this book, tell your friends about it, and then go hug your loved ones.a
a Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize winner for "The Kentucky Cycle,"

Author Bio

Jim Beaver is an actor best known for his roles on HBO's Deadwood, the CW's Supernatural, and FX's Justified.Beaver is also aplaywright, screenwriter, film historian, and Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam. He is the author of Life's That Way, a memoir in the form of emails sent to family and friends during the most challenging time of his life.