I Found My Tribe

March 5, 2018
Fitzmaurice’s contemplative memoir recalls the emotional roller-coaster of life in the Irish town of Greystones with her husband, five children, and a house constantly filled with caregivers and nurses. Four years after her 2004 marriage, Fitzmaurice’s filmmaker husband, Simon, was diagnosed with ALS (which he explored in his memoir It’s Not Dark Yet). Less than a year later, he was using a wheelchair; in 2010 he was placed on a respirator. With a group of friends, Fitzmaurice started a group called the Tragic Wives’ Swimming Club who together found solace by swimming in the icy ocean water surrounding their town. “Maybe this is some kind of death wish or my sorry soul drawn to eternity,” she writes. “When I swim like this I am fearless.” Fitzmaurice’s free-flowing writing style nicely captures the tedium, stress, and joyful moments of her complex life as the narrative loops back and forth in time before and after her husband’s diagnosis. She chronicles the couple’s early romance, finding their first home, the appearance of her husband’s symptoms, and the births of their children, two of whom were born in 2012. Finding daily doses of joy, the author manages to maintain her sanity and keep her family close. Fitzmaurice is a lyrical writer, and her story is intimate and sad but ultimately one of bravery and survival.

January 1, 2018
An Irish radio producer tells how she learned to live--and thrive--by the side of a beloved husband diagnosed with motor neurone disease.When Fitzmaurice first met her filmmaker husband, Simon, she fell in love with a vitality and eloquence that expressed itself in his "dancing hands." Together they built a bond that was both close and passionate. But during the first decade of living within the happy self-containment of her family "tribe," Simon suddenly began to limp. Doctors later confirmed that he had MND, a condition that would render him mute and unable to move anything but his eyes. In poetic language, Fitzmaurice recounts the story of how she adjusted to living with a bedridden husband who communicated via an eye-activated computer program. A "merry band" of nurses and caregivers gradually became a permanent feature of her home, as did ventilators and other hospital equipment. Meanwhile, the author oversaw the colorful chaos of living with five small children. Yet at every step of her busy life, she remained all too aware that the only way she could control overwhelming sorrow was to "park it outside of small moments [of peace]." Looking outside the family unit that had once been all she needed to sustain her, Fitzmaurice joined a group of women she came to call "the Tragic Wives' Swimming Club," whose members included friends who coped with life-changing challenges that they or their loved ones were facing by diving into the bracing waters of the ocean. The near-constant emotional pain has never left the author, but her achievement, both in life and in this book, is to show the renewing force that her adopted "tribe" and daily swims ultimately became. Though irrevocably changed, Fitzmaurice came to see that the landscape of her life was still every bit as "surprising and beautiful" as it had ever been.An uplifting, life-celebrating memoir written amid extremely difficult circumstances.

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February 1, 2018
Decide whether you've found your tribe and go from there. For years Fitzmaurice happily surrounded herself with hers: her five children and her husband, Simon. But things change when Simon is diagnosed with ALS and within a few years can only communicate with his eyes. Fitzmaurice finds support by expanding her tribe to include the Tragic Wives Swimming Club, a group of friends who regularly plunge into the Irish Sea to clear their minds and soothe their souls. This memoir, the author's first book, is a glimpse into Fitzmaurice's daily chaos: one that's filled with nurses, children, and pets all whirling around a motionless center. Fitzmaurice writes her thoughts in a free flowing, beautiful, and almost poetic style, baring her soul and leaving nothing unsaid from the time of her husband's diagnosis until the present day. A moving and emotional piece of writing, Fitzmaurice's captivating memoir shares her unique experience and invites the reader to realize the strength of love and the support of true friendship.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)