In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss

Content Warning: The source text deals with issues including terminal illness, assisted suicide, and mental health deterioration, including references to depression and anxiety.

Amy Bloom is the author of In Love, which is written from her first-person point of view and details her life and relationship with her late husband, Brian Ameche. Bloom is the author of four novels, numerous short stories, and two works of nonfiction. In Love is a departure from her previous work in that it centers Bloom’s personal life rather than fictional characters or scientific studies.

Bloom met her third husband, Brian, when she was in an unhappy marriage. Superficially, she seemed to have everything—“a full-time job, a teenager, a toddler, and a baby” (67)—but she was adrift and miserable. She discovered a new way of being in her relationship with Brian, and their shared connection deepened over time. In Brian, Bloom found a partner and a friend, as well as “the best father figure of [her] life” (195).

In Love suggests that the prior strength of Bloom and Brian’s relationship made The Personal and Emotional Impact of Alzheimer’s particularly terrible. The more unfamiliar that Brian becomes to Bloom, the more frustrated, lonely, and disoriented Bloom feels.