“Resilience,” by Elizabeth Edwards. What did we know and when did we know it?
“Resilience” is the title of the book. The common metaphor used – and it’s used by Elizabeth Edwards in a passage quoted on the dust jacket – is getting back on your feet after you’ve been knocked down. After a hard hit, though, it’s best to take some time before getting up. But time is something Elizabeth doesn’t have. As she told Oprah Winfrey last week, the incurable cancer with which she lives could end her life in 10 years or one, or less than one. Understandably, therefore, she’s anxious to give her account of John’s infidelity during his presidential campaign, their decision that he should remain in the race regardless, and their decision to stay in even when, three months later, they learned of her cancer’s recurrence in terminal form. Anxious to get it all behind her as she enters her “new reality” as a woman who loves her husband but cannot fully trust him.
It’s a hurried, incomplete telling, then, interspersed across what amounts to a long essay about grief and how hard it is disentangling from broken dreams.
For Edwards supporters, though, who presumably will be its chief audience, it serves mainly as a disquieting reminder of how much we didn’t know, or knew but set aside, as we climbed aboard for the thrill ride of a presidential run that wasn’t safe for anyone. Continue reading »
