Book Review: The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite

I’ll admit to picking this book up in the first place because it seemed juicy. A tell-all memoir about a woman discovering her recently deceased husband was hiding a bunch of things? Give me the tea! But The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards by Calgary author Jessica Waite wasn’t a simple look at how terrible he was, instead it’s a very complicated but realistic look at grief, and how we reconcile our memories of someone who passed even when they did awful things to us. It’s not depressing either – there’s (some) delicious revenge, and ultimately, a complicated tale of love.

Book Summary

Jessica Waite and her husband Sean have a wonderful son named Dash, a fulfilling social life, a beautiful home, and a strong emotional connection to one another. Sean travels for work quite a bit as he manages an office in the U.S. so Jessica doesn’t work because of his intense career expectations and travel. While in an airport about to hop a plane back home, he drops dead of a heart attack. Once the funeral arrangements are made, Jessica begins to sift through their legal and insurance documents, but quickly realizes Sean was hiding things from her, one of the biggest secrets being they were broke. She also realizes he had been cheating on her, addicted to porn, and smoking weed regularly (this was before it was legal). Not having worked in well over 10 years, Jessica is suddenly faced with a scary reality; if their life insurance policy is void because of Sean’s smoking, how will she support her son? And how does she reconcile the good years she had with Sean, with the truths she now knows?

My Thoughts

I had the pleasure of attending the official launch of this book in Calgary earlier this summer, where I heard from Waite directly about the writing of this book. Instead of it being a salacious evening of gossip (which I must admit, a part of me was hoping for), it was a very honest and courageous look at why forgiveness is something Jessica worked towards, and the incredible outpouring of love she received from both friends, family, and even Sean’s family when writing this book. The title grabs your attention and suggests the book is going to be about a woman getting revenge over her devious husband, and the first half of the book definitely reflects the shock and anger the author experiences once these secrets are revealed. But the second half of the book is her journey towards forgiveness and healing. She meets with a death doula, she attends a conference for widows, she even explores ways of communicating with Sean via the ‘signs’ she believes she may be receiving from him.

The narrative intersperses her present day activities with memories of Sean, which gives the reader glimpses of why they fell in love, and why she struggles to reconcile what she discovered, with who she knew Sean to be. Despite wanting to keep my anger burning throughout the book, I too began to see why acceptance and forgiveness was the best path forward, and seeing Jessica flourishing in person at the event made me realize how healthy her forgiveness really was, for everyone involved.

This is Waite’s first book, and she spoke about the long process of writing it at the book launch, as it took her years to complete. Her writing is funny, relatable, and incredibly honest, so it’s clear she’s been working at honing her writing skills, even though this is her first official release. And this book has received MUCH attention in Canada since it was published, receiving a massive advance from her publisher, Simon and Schuster Canada. It’s currently sitting on our bestseller lists, so it’s definitely resonating with audiences. People come for the shocking reveals, but I’m hoping they stay for the message. Grief is a complicated emotion that we don’t have many tools to cope with, and although this memoir isn’t meant to be a guidebook, it can definitely offer a path forward for people in similar situations (which would likely be many of us, because no one is perfect, even after they’ve died).