EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE

During her husband’s near-fatal illness, the author reckons with faith, loss, and the meaning of existence.

Married to endurance athlete Tommy Rivers Puzey, Catudal, a freelance writer, omits his full name in her debut memoir, referring to him only as Rivs. The book begins when the author learned, at 13, that her father had terminal lung cancer. Raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catudal had been “taught that god was a merit-based interventionist—one who would save me from my mortal sins if only I did my part.” However, she writes, “the more I prayed, the worse he became.” After her father’s death, the author “boxed up faith, hope, and spirituality and labeled them with a strict note to self in the archives of my mind: Rotten. Do Not Touch.” Following this tragic story, Catudal focuses on her husband’s devastating 2020 illness and, relatedly, the life-affirming lessons she’s learned by virtue of pain. When Rivs, an accomplished runner who once finished the Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 18 minutes, “a qualifying standard for Olympic trials,” became sick, he refused to go to the hospital. Eventually, he spent more than three months in the ICU (he was in an induced coma for a month), where Catudal and their three daughters’ visits were severely limited due to Covid-19 restrictions. As Rivs battled lung cancer and lymphoma, the author blogged about her experience; some of these posts are included near the book’s end. She repeatedly shares her realizations, many of which border on cliché—e.g., “Love is light—only fully realized when it is reflected”; on love, “The only thing in this world that is truly pure and purely true. And in that singularity, I found god. Which is to say, I found myself.” Catudal writes far more about Rivs’ near death than about his astonishing survival.

A heart-wrenching, sincere memoir weighed down by insipid revelations such as, “Everything simply was.”