“The source of my pain was never the detection; it was the water torture of having been chosen against and lied to and neglected.”

–-Jessica Waite

One day in 2015, Jessica Waite gets that her husband Sean has had a heart attack and died at an airport, on his way home to Calgary from a business trip. After the funeral,  when she goes through his belongings, she finds things that shock her: secret debts, evidence of affairs and dates with escorts, and an extensive and varied stash of porn.  He’s also been a secret weed smoker and his life insurance policy is now void. The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards tracks her darkly humorous and transformative  journey to understand the man she married, cope with her grief and sense of betrayal, and take on her new role as a single parent to their young son.

Waite takes us along with her as she learns Sean’s secrets, and reveals that their marriage was not without its problems. This book is about her journey, though, rather than about him, and the focus remains on this  generous and self-aware woman as she navigates her discoveries and her shifting attitudes towards Sean. Sometimes she’s furious with him and his lies and manipulation, but she still loves him and tries to understand his failings.

The harder she works to process her grief and get a handle on it,–through healing groups,  counsellors, and spiritual guides—the more Waite realizes that there is no cure. E she tries to understand her grief and get a handle on it – she attends seminars and programs,community-based healing groups, sees counsellors and spiritual guides – the more she finds that it can’t be cured. Eventually, she finds a community of widows and comes to accept her sadness as well as her mean impulses. There’s no right way to feel about someone who is both beloved and a bastard. She finds  that the  key to survivinggrief isn’t controlling it, but rather letting it wash over her.