Molly
Blake Butler
A gripping, unforgettable memoir from one of the best, most original writers of the 21st century. Blake Butler and Molly Brodak instantly connected, fell in love, married and built a life together. Both writers with deep roots in contemporary American literature, their union was an iconic joining of forces between two major and beloved talents. more
320 pages, Paperback
First published Archway Editions
4.16
Rating
428
Ratings
116
Reviews
Blake Butler
65 books 349 followers
Blake Butler is the author of EVER, Scorch Atlas, and two books forthcoming in 2011 and 2012 from Harper Perennial. He edits 'the internet literature magazine blog of the future' HTML Giant. His other writing have appeared in The Believer, Unsaid, Fence, Dzanc's Best of the Web 2009. He lives in Atlanta.Community reviews
TW: suicide + suicidal ideation A few months ago, my partner came home from work and said, “Wanna read a book about some guy whose wife killed herself. ”“Is it any good. ” I said. They shrugged. My partner had requested an ARC of “Molly” because they like Archway Editions, and the book seemed interesting. more
Before we begin: yes, I actually read the book. I’m not one of Blake Butler’s illiterate “haters” that he loves compulsively posting about on Twitter. I really don’t know what’s worse: a hateful and spiteful book written by a man who wanted to hurt his already dead wife one final time or the fact that he loves to go on rants on Twitter while his new (yes, new. ) writer wife posts outrageously violent and misogynistic shit about a fellow woman writer who who expressed her displeasure towards the book and its publication. Are we all really doing this for the sake of art. more
This is one of the most beautiful, wounded, sincere and loving things I've ever read. I can't imagine how difficult it was to offer your departed loved one to the judgement of strangers with all her qualities, but also all her flaws and wounds and yet despite being quite wounded himself, Blake Butler stands behind Molly without any fear or reservation. His love is stronger than the demons that pushed his wife to end her life. Being a long-time Blake Butler fan, I can appreciate how much courage it must've taken to abandon momentarily his stream-of-consciousness writing style and be so unflinchingly present in order to honor his late wife. Molly is the best thing he's ever written alongside 300 000 000 and that says a lot because the guy is really freaking good. more
After reading many reviews of Molly, I began wondering if I was reading the same book as everyone else. I began to wonder why this book needed to be written, why did Molly's story need to be told, other than what appears to be a payback, an 'I'll show you, I'll show the world who you really were', one final assault on her. The irony here for me is that throughout her life, her mental anguish, torment and pain at the hands of others as well as her own, it would be Blake who would ultimately betray her to the whole world. He has every right to be angry, confused and deeply hurt upon the discovery of her lies and cheating. I can't imagine the mental toll and torment of such a discovery after a partner's death, questioning every aspect of their lives together, trying to distinguish between what was real and what were lies, especially as she is no longer here for him to face her, question her, be angry with her. more
A polarizing memoir that left me feeling very uncomfortable and questioning if the author, Blake, had the authority to write about his dead wife in such graphic detail without consent. His wife, Molly, suffered from mental illness before ultimately ending her life after years of struggles. Although Blake also told details of his life/story, expressed much love and gratitude for his late wife Molly, and used excerpts from her book, “Bandit”, as to use her own words, he included intimate details about his wife that felt exploitative. The book was well written, but I would not recommend it to others. more
This is beautifully written and impressively descriptive. I found myself uncomfortable with the book even as I admired its writing. While the book is an autobiography, the author’s wife Molly ultimately remains the subject most laid bare by it. The inclusion of Molly’s suicide note was startling & made even more so by Butler’s dismissal of it as an inauthentic last work from Molly, among other reasons because she didn’t mention in it that she had been cheating on Butler. This portrayal of her last words felt tinged with bitterness, even if it is justifiable. more
Needed a better proofreader. I wish Butler had shown us more reasons why he loved Molly, more of her redeeming attributes, because I left this book with the feeling that she was cruel, manipulative, and callous, and that he was a victim of abuse to an extent he had yet to fully realize from even beyond the grave. Very hard to rate/view this from a critical lens as it is so deeply personal. more
“A girl grinning, golden hair, all limbs in casts. A day made just for leeches. I wrote many letters, never received. Asound of a train as if understood. An emblem. more
i loved patricia lockwood's review of this book and unfortunately prefer it to the actual book. it's rich with the accumulated years of knowing someone abruptly gone, abruptly mythic- painstakingly recalled and reinterpreted memories, wavering- but it was poorly edited to the point of surprise. some of the prose was incomprehensible and read like a frantic first draft. i can appreciate the effort given the near impossible task of turning one's grief over interminably, searching for something unmistakable. in terms of the ethical debate, the author could have done without the misguided gesture at a diagnosis, as if that truly enriches a reader's understanding of who molly was. more
well I did want to read this but no ebook in the year 2023. . more
There are some beautiful, tender moments in this book. I respect why the author felt the need to write it. I really don’t think he had a right to share Molly’s old journal entries. But my biggest lingering thought: did a SINGLE editor touch this book at any point. . more
Read for the BTP / Octofinals Nonfiction / Rating to come when the judging of this round has been finalized (end of March). more
Probably the most intense account of grief I've ever came across. I have yet to lose a loved one in my life, but this painted such a detailed portrait of that feeling I almost felt its shadow looming over me, breathing down my neck. In that sense, it can be a more terrifying read than most horror novels. But it's also beautiful and painfully sincere, especially in how unafraid it is to become all messy and jumbled, maybe because the written word is an unfitting language for the pain of losing someone. Maybe it is. more
Blake Butler smeared his traumatized wife as a nutcase and has constructed his “narrative” from a mishmash of self-delusion, theft, censorship, and selective exposure of the marriage he purports to “illuminate”. His wife left behind a suicide note, which did NOT permit her husband to use her phone, journals, etc. for any of his future “writing” projects. His own phone, unpublished writing, etc. are unavailable for us to examine. more
in early March, 2020, the writer Molly Brodak died by suicide. Blake Butler chooses to open his story of their marriage there. From there, he goes back to the beginning, through her death, and through the aftermath--where he discovers that throughout their marriage, she was unfaithful. Some critics have called this book unfair and exploitative, taking advantage of a dead woman with mental illness who cannot answer back. I don't think it is. more
Appreciated the honesty and accountability on part of the author but the book still read like an exercise in control over a situation and a person the author would otherwise have none over. I empathize, but can't really get on board with this as a striking indie memoir when the crux of the story is mostly personal fodder/indie lit gossip rather than affecting insight or writing. I don't mean to be harsh haha it just kind of relies on diagnosis speculation, etc, when I was looking forward to feeling the author's own proximity to the subject and more personal assessments rather than the DSM-5 of it all. There are definitely some sweet moments and pockets of interesting reflection. I most appreciated the sequencing of events and scenes. more
I feel that a lot of people view messy relationships through the lens of Shondaland where, at best, people try to work out their “issues” politely and at their cheapest, dismiss those who have wronged them in a cathartic rage. It’s refreshing then to read someone pick apart his darkest moments and reflections on love, fidelity, betrayal, secrets, and our very worthiness to exist in the world and whether the world even deserves people as good as us, damaged though we may be. Every opening sentence of this book is a punch in the gut and while I was catching my breath, I gave Butler the space to circle around the toughest emotions a human might try to describe. I may not have ever read a book as brave as this one. more
really good, though the end was not as strong as the rest of the book. more
No rating. I shouldn't know any of this. There's no argument from me on publishing this; this is between the maker and the motion, as they say. But I shouldn't have been able to read it. If I die and you have the notion to read my group chats, my text messages, my emails, my personal writings, learn from this book: stop reading. more
I travel across two freeways everyday and, on occasion, imagine what it would be like to be obliterated by a head-on collision with an Anthem Axle Back mack truck. If this is how you die then your brief life takes on a special significance. Everything you have ever done has led you to the moment where your body was vaporized by getting a little too close to the global supply chain in motion. This is what happens with any untimely death: heart attacks, random acts of violence, suicides. They recontextualize and paraphrase an entire life. more
I always thought the general rule for writers writing personal non-fiction about trauma was that the turmoil had to subside, the lava needed to cool, before it could be examined, put into context, honed into art. Years need to pass. Decades. even better. I’ve always thought the last thing a recently traumatized writer should do is walk up to the mouth of the caldera as it implodes, stare directly into the eruption, and try to make something out of what comes out. more
this felt gross to read. it felt like this man journaled some very real trauma but it shouldn’t have been published. he carefully manipulated the image and reputation of his dead wife and published it in a way that is icky. more
Throughout the book, Blake extols Molly's artistic credentials and achievements almost as a form of recursion punctuating the malformed sense of self-worth Molly held regarding herself and how it shaped her worldview. It is this recursion which emphasizes one of the overarching themes: impostor syndrome as a byproduct of trauma; how trauma ravages any modicum of artistic credibility and by extension any feelings of love, stability in purpose, and merits of existence in a world plagued by fear, hatred, and violence. Artists are inherently overwhelmingly sensitive to ideas of death, thus the very experience of life in a world of symbols which begs meaning is a hidden gauntlet. It is gradually revealed following her death that Molly had a second-life built around performance, displaying self-destructive behaviors rife with contradictions of how Blake perceived Molly. The turn in the story comes with the floor of his reality shifting realizing how the love of his love went to great lengths not only to hurt him, but herself. more
This was just a completely surprising and incredible work of memoir. Absolutely heart wrenching, harrowing, and dark — but a book that was deeply felt and very well written. An excavation of the soul and a troubled mind laid bare that I don’t think I’ll ever forget reading. There’s certainly something to be said of humans surviving the most terrible and traumatic moments of their lives and putting that pain and suffering on the page for others to read in solidarity. I’m in awe of writers who expose their humanity in such a vulnerable way to make sense and meaning out of the tragic things that happen to them and their loved ones. more
I'm really torn on this one. Parts of Molly - specifically, the first 37 pages, and the last quarter of the book - demonstrated an earnest and heartfelt attempt by Butler to capture that which language can't otherwise reach, clawing at the proper way to adequately describe both feelings of undiluted grief and cautious hope. In his final letter to Molly, for instance, he writes, "These days I'm trying to figure out how to lend my wishes patience, their own rooms. " Other segments of the book, however, felt hobbled in their somewhat forced attempt to produce profundity. I also found the middle part of the book a bit difficult to get through. more
Molly is one of the most difficult and affecting books I’ve ever read. It’s unbearably vivid and real. It scared me several times—at one point, my hands were shaking too much, my thoughts spiraling out of control, and I had to put the book down and journal to steady myself. What Blake Butler managed to capture in this book feels otherworldly, like I stepped through some sort of portal and had no way out of Molly and Blake’s house in Atlanta, forced to witness every joy and subsequent heartbreak. Please read with extreme caution and appreciate the beauty and devastation of living and creating. more
“Every day that I am older now I am one day older than I was when Molly died…Only our souls can bear the difference. ” //Reading ‘Molly’ has been a moving experience that I do not regret. At times author Blake Butler depicts feeling-states such as acute grief, dissociation, and the powerlessness of caregiving with surprising immediacy and vividness–the passages about his parents’ dementia are astonishing. So there is, to me, something here to consider. And also, as many have called for on social media, still more to condemn. more
I came across this book innocently, drawn by the cover at a local bookstore. I realized I’d encountered Butler’s fiction— “The Gown From Mother’s Stomach,” excerpted from Scorch Atlas— in an MFA course I’m in. I am grateful now that I was able to discover Molly in a relative vacuum. The first pages are devastating, gripping, and raw— so affecting that throughout the day after reading them, I found myself tearing up. Butler knew Molly microscopically, and in this memoir, alternates between acting as a poet, essayist, philosopher and journalist— combing through what remaining artifacts of Molly’s existence that he has— journals, poems, nonfiction, texts, emails, receipts— to devise this utterly human portrait. more
There is no way to review Molly without spoilers, and yet even what will be spoiled here cannot be fully appreciated without delving into the deep, messy trenches of this autobiography. And therein lies the first quandary; this autobiography centers around the life of Molly Brodak — her writing (esteemed poet), her baking (once a contestant on Great American Bake off), and then her demise, a childhood of abuse, the father who abandoned her family to rob banks and live with his secret family, and her eventual suicide. And that hardly covers one third of her life. So of course it isn’t her autobiography. She’s not alive to tell it. more