However satisfying writing is — that mix of discipline and miracle, which leaves you in control, even when what appears on the page has emerged from regions beyond your control — it is a very poor substitute indeed for the joy and agony of loving.’

I hadn’t read Gillian Rose before, but I have read a lot by her sister (who is one of the greatest non-fiction writers we have!) Is it, perhaps, sentimental to suggest in runs in the family? Given Love’s Work is a profound and slight book that I will be thinking about for some time.

It is, in essence, a collection of personal essays that pull together to create an affecting take on illness and love. Especially in the second half as Rose unpicks the philosophical ideas caught up in the being sick and needing love. I highlighted so many sections that I will need to return to, that will likely deepen and enrich upon doing so. I have already made a list of people I might give copies to.

All of which is made more intense knowing that Love’s Work was originally published in the same year Rose died, aged 48, from ovarian cancer. In this sense, the book is a writer taking stock in the face of death and, as such a position often does, it opens up the writing to new places that are at once scary and exciting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for providing me with a digital ARC. The Modern Classics series is one I have a deep attachment to, so this was a tiny dream come true.

This is a very unorthodox memoir. People love making stories of themselves, and all we've learned are stories that have clear beginnings, arcs, and endings. You know, start out with your childhood, reflect at the end, and all that sort of jazz.
But this is not a story of regularity. In this memoir, life is but a flash in the pan – there are a few critical moments, some very tiny slices of life that truly matter, and a subsequent meditation on said slices.
While I wasn't there completely in the beginning, I was wholeheartedly committed to the work upon reading about the cancer diagnosis. To Love's Work.
I'm glad I got to read this. And you will be too.

This had been on my TBR for ages, so I was happy to finally read it and it was well worth the read. A captivating memoir, Gilliian Rose pulls at your heartstrings and thoughts with Love's Work in a novella that is both heartbreaking and somewhat hopeful. It is one of the most ethically important books I've read, reading Gillian Rose's words as she dives into her past and allows herself to be bluntly vulnerable without sugarcoating her pain or trials.

That's not to say it was an easy read. For as small as Love's Work is, it is at some points difficult and took me a few days to get through it. But, that didn't make me enjoy it less, in fact, I'd say Gillian Rose's bluntness gave it its own charm that makes it stand out as a memoir.

Overall, Love's Work is a brilliant memoir with a beauty in it that many cannot accomplish; it's blunt, it's thought-provoking, and it pulls at your heartstrings. It is a must-read that you absolutely cannot miss if you want a captivating memoir.

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for sending me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

She continues, raising doubts about our potential answers in her signature manner. However, since the book's synopsis already informs us that it was written "as she was dying of cancer," we have known the specific circumstances surrounding its creation from the first. It must have influenced the way she chose to write about all of the topics in this book, including her friends and lovers, her early dyslexia and her immersion in philosophy, her difficult relationship with her father and the easy one she had with her stepfather. She also avoids discussing her cancer for several chapters, which can't help but affect how we respond to what we find there. Therefore, even though the book lacks a sentimental moment, even the rigorous and hard-working scholar must have felt more acutely than most about the unique, unrepeatable character of all experience.

The end product is a novel that is both engrossing and annoying. If she didn't stray from a topic as soon as she piqued our interest, the book's lack of linearity wouldn't be an issue. Her account of an affair she had with a Catholic priest is typical of this pattern. She gives an impression of their time together and goes into detail about how they met. Then, as a lot of questions cross her mind, she starts a philosophical meditation on "Why it is so agonising to the Beloved when the Lover wards off love?" and Fr. Patrick Gorman disappears. This discussion is fascinating, of course, but maybe it should have been postponed? The binary separation between the Beloved and the Lover is indicative of a recurring theme in the book that pits opposing forces against one another: the strong against the weak; the father against the stepfather; and most importantly, Stone against Rose. The final two are surnames. Her stepfather's name, Rose, is what she legally changes from her given surname, Stone, which is her father's name. She extracts meaning from that shift and the resonant possibilities in the meanings of both words repeatedly. She doesn't say it, but there is no Rose (Life) without its Stone (Pain); there is also no Rose without its thorns.

Rose's ability to take the reader by surprise by abruptly shifting to an unexpected position is one of the book's greatest qualities. "Feminism does not discern the beauty or the limitation of such a love in which each is equally teacher and taught, Lover and Beloved" is one of her other contrasts, though she does allow that one can be both at once. This brings her to a criticism of feminism, which she makes frequently. The book is jam-packed with fascinating revelations and creative ideas. She consistently observes how roles can change quickly and how, in a real "marriage," [her quotation] "the singleness of each is enhanced by the communion."

Thank you for the advanced copy in exchange for a review.
I loved this memoir, I was captivated by it. Gillian Rose story was difficult but so well written and put together that I could not put it down. It was honest and sometimes angry.

“You may be weaker than the whole world but you are always stronger than yourself”.

Originally published in 1995, this heartbreaking and yet somewhat hopeful memoir is Gillian Rose’s testament to a life lived chasing the truth. A university professor and a philosopher, Rose goes back to her difficult, Jewish childhood as a dyslexic girl torn between a thorny relationship with her biological father and the affectionate one with her stepfather. Moving on through her life, she recounts her relationships with friends and lovers and, only halfway through the book, she admits to her being sick with terminal ovarian cancer in her 40s. The writing cuts like a knife, and there is so much to unpack in this book: life and death, writing as vocation and salvation, religion (chosen and imposed), the importance of one’s own name (the “Stone” and the “Rose”), loss, and so much more. The author’s philosophical background certainly informs the prose, but her style still manages to be easily readable and full of memorable passages. It’s such an important book, despite its being a slim volume, and I’m glad Penguin decided to give it a new life in this new, beautiful edition.

“I am always compelled to write, in sickness and in health: for, otherwise, I die deadly, but this way, by this work, I may die forward into the intensified agon of living”.

•thanks to #netgalley for the #arc in exchange for an honest review*

This is the kind of memoir I love. It's strange, fragmentary and at times difficult. It strives to capture the essence of Gillian Rose but also the difficulty of being and the strangeness of the need to put down on paper who you are. It flits across times and people and memories, sometimes stringing them together, sometimes hinting at things that Rose may have been reaching for but not able or willing to explore fully. It's tender, angry and sometimes bewildering. I can't say I always enjoyed it, but it kept me coming back for more.