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Giulia laughed longer and harder than anyone I’d ever met. It took control of her whole body. She often had to hold herself up when she started laughing, to keep herself from falling down. No matter what mood you were in when she started, you were always laughing along with her before she finished. I loved to make her laugh, because it was like creating a little private memory that was ours and ours only, to add to the growing piling of trivialities that no one else could possibly care about but were becoming the foundation of our intimacy. Little things like this – knowing that we would wordlessly laugh all night long together, through smiles and glances – pulled me deeper into my infatuation. As she laughed in her bra and half applied make-up, I knew that I would never be able to be away from her.
Of course, not everything was 100 per cent perfect, even though it felt that way at the time.
‘This gorgeous memoir gives readers a raw and unvarnished account of what it’s like to live with and love someone with a severe mental illness. There are moments of gut-wrenching sadness – but, ultimately, the story is hopeful, even triumphant. This book basically tore out my heart and then lovingly sewed it back in place’ Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire
About the author
Mark Lukach is a teacher and freelance writer. His work has been published in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Wired, and other publications. He is the Ninth Grade Dean at The Athenian School, where he also teaches history. He lives with his wife, Giulia, and their son, Jonas, in the San Francisco Bay area.
Mark first wrote about Giulia in a New York Times "Modern Love" column and again in a piece for Pacific Standard Magazine, which was the magazine's most-read article in 2015. He has also shared their story at The Moth Main Stage, and at a TEDx conference. His novel My Lovely Wife shares his experience of loving someone with mental illness.
Summary
Mark and Giulia fell for each other in their teens, married in their 20s, and didn't realize what their love would demand of them until Giulia suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break at the age of twenty-seven. Hospitalized for almost a month, she was tormented by delusions and paranoia. Upon release, she sunk into an extended suicidal depression during which Mark, struggling to support Giulia, was torn between the demands of keeping her safe and following doctor's orders, and honouring her independence and making her feel loved.
Eventually, Giulia fully recovered, and the couple had a son. Soon after Jonas was born, Giulia had another breakdown, and then a third a few years after that. Pushed to the edge of the abyss, everything the couple had once taken for granted was upended. In My Lovely Wife, Mark Lukach takes us through these harrowing years with compassion and candour, as he and Giulia renegotiate their relationship, anchored by an abiding devotion to each other and their family.
A story of the fragility of the mind, and the tenacity of the human spirit, My Lovely Wife is, above all, a love story that raises profound questions: How do we best care for the people we love? What and who do we live for? Breathtaking in its honesty, radiant with compassion, written with dazzling lyricism, this intensely personal odyssey offers much-needed insight into the caregiving side of mental illness, and affirms the power of love.
Foreword
What matters more than love and life? A powerful memoir of one man's overwhelming love for his wife through mental illness and psychosis.
Additional text
It’s possible that understanding the terrifying and excruciating process of being placed in a mental institution can be best understood by the person who loves you most. Mark Lukach lyrically transforms our understanding of love, mental illness, patience, and devotion in this stunning memoir which chronicles falling in love with a woman whose mental condition eventually changed their lives forever. With moving and touching prose, this book truly describes what it’s like to have the picture of your life smashed in an instant and subsequently reassembled miraculously.
