Published in 2024
238 pages
Rachel Zimmerman, an award-winning journalist, has been writing about health and wellness for more than two decades. She currently writes stories on mental health for The Washington Post. Previously, she worked as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a health reporter for WBUR, Boston’s NPR station, where she co-founded a popular blog and podcast. Her reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times; The Atlantic; Vogue; O, the Oprah Magazine; New York Magazine’s The Cut; The Huffington Post; and Slate, among other publications. She co-authored The Doula Guide to Birth and The Healing Power of Storytelling.
A graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Sarah Lawrence College, Zimmerman lives in Cambridge, Mass. with her husband, Moungi Bawendi, daughters, and their dog, Phoebe.
What is this book about?
“This poignant, soul-baring memoir is truly one of the most moving accounts of grief, loss and resilience that I’ve read.” —Tara Parker-Pope, The Washington Post
“Masterfully written and compelling… Zimmerman’s book is a marvelous feat; I stayed up all night reading it.” —Deesha Philyaw, author, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
When a state trooper appeared at Rachel Zimmerman’s door to report that her husband had jumped to his death off a nearby bridge, she fell to her knees, unable to fully absorb the news. How could the man she married, a devoted father and robotics professor at MIT, have committed such a violent act? How would she explain this to her young daughters? And could she have stopped him?
A longtime journalist, she probed obsessively, believing answers would help her survive. She interviewed doctors, suicide researchers and a man who jumped off the same bridge and lived.
Us, After examines domestic devastation and resurgence, digging into the struggle between public and private selves, life’s shifting perspectives, the work of motherhood, and the secrets we keep. In this memoir, Zimmerman confronts the unimaginable and discovers the good in what remains.
