BUTTER SIDE UP

A memoir recounts the struggles of a woman having nowhere to go but up.

The organizing thread of Enright’s book is an age-old phenomenon: The buttered side of a piece of toast often seems to be the part that hits the floor when the bread slips from the hand (this is probably not much of a mystery since the buttered side is a bit heavier). In these pages, this event becomes a rolling metaphor for Murphy’s law, which is itself a metaphor for the rough buffeting life can sometimes seem to be handing out. The memoir’s central concern is “how do we successfully navigate change so we can move forward, not backward; make our ideas happen; and land butter-side up in the game of life?” In the opening section, the author recalls an intensive care unit where she was comforting a man named Clayton who had recently suffered a serious head trauma and was having trouble remembering the fact that they had built a life together. This was not Enright’s first encounter with head trauma. In 2017, she suffered a “life-altering concussion” when she was hit in the head by a volleyball at her son’s tournament. As the frank chronicle unfolds, the author, who describes herself as an “ordinary person,” must deal with helping Clayton adapt to having an acquired brain injury. In this inspiring and upbeat book, Enright is a wonderfully clear-minded narrator of her own experiences, taking readers right inside a personal trauma that many people would have found utterly defeating. Moving through her vivid account with a smooth professionalism, the author convincingly transforms her own story into a broader series of encouragements for her readers. “I believe you are what you believe,” she writes, “and that the majority of us have the ability to create a new reality for ourselves.” The result is a stirringly believable tale of personal reinvention.

An unsparing, ultimately uplifting account of turning a crisis into a new view of life.