The devastation wrought by the suicide of his wife, 39-year-old poet Molly Brodak, is the subject of Molly, a brave memoir by Blake Butler (Aannex), in which he attempts to deal with her death. In 2020, he returned to their Georgia home one day to find a white envelope taped to the door. He froze upon reading the letter's first words: "Blake, I have decided to leave this world." She had written that she'd leave her body "in the nature area where we used to go walking so I could see the sky and trees and hear the birds one last time." In excruciating detail, Butler describes what he sees upon finding her: "Hair pulled up in a bun. Her favorite green coat." These particulars are all the more wrenching for their ordinariness.
That's the start of a work that's alternately harrowing and philosophical, mixing details of their years together with discourses on Nietzsche, God, and more. Butler describes Molly's mental illness; her divorced father, who "kept a secret family and went to prison twice for robbing banks"; the baking business she started on the side; and her infidelities before and during their marriage. The grim subject matter may upset some readers, but Butler writes beautifully, with elegantly bitter prose, as when he notes "the endless sprawl of mass putridity God had allowed to persist in the same space as his supposed lambs." For readers who have experienced similar tragedy and seek commiseration, Molly will be welcome company. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer