“Molly” by Blake Butler

LARB Book Club is thrilled to announce our Spring 2024 Book Club title: Molly by Blake Butler! To join the LARB Book Club, where we put you in conversation with editors and members and send a copy of the selected title to your door, become a LARB Friend member today. The Spring Book Club Discussion will take place in mid-April. RSVP link to be announced.

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This book may not be an easy read. “Maybe it’d be cathartic, though, saying it all out loud and crying with the strangers, all of them with grief in their hearts, small or large, ancient or fresh,” writes Mike Jeffrey about Blake Butler’s Molly (2023). Butler is the author of nine novels, including Alice Knott (2020), Aannex (2022), and 300,000,000 (2014), but Molly is his first memoir. The book traces the years following the suicide of his wife, Molly Brodak, an award-winning poet and memoirist.

Molly is a story about love, grief, legacy, and the accuracy of memory. It has already incited broader conversations about the ethics of representation and exposure, sparking intense critical debate. How can a text represent the kaleidoscope of human experience? How much are we allowed to reveal about someone else? Can a grieving husband tell his wife’s story?

Archways Editions provides the following description of Molly:

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.

Nearly three years into their marriage, grappling with mental illness and a lifetime of trauma, Molly took her own life. In the days and weeks after Molly’s death, Blake discovered shocking secrets she had held back from the world, fundamentally altering his view of their relationship and who she was.

A masterpiece of autobiography, Molly is a riveting journey into the darkest and most unthinkable parts of the human heart, emerging with a hard-won, unsurpassedly beautiful understanding that expands the possibilities of language to comprehend and express true love.

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Join our Book Club today to get Molly + our next three staff-curated selections, as well as access to our quarterly discussions hosted by LARB staff. To view previous Book Club picks, please visit the LARB Book Club page.