Life’s That Way: A Memoir

I love Jim Beaver. Supernatural isn’t Supernatural without Jim Beaver appearing as Bobby Singer, the Winchesters’ father figure. After I saw Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, which Beaver was in, I discovered that Beaver wrote Life’s That Way: A Memoir and requested it immediately without learning any more about the book.
If you are currently fighting cancer or you are a close friend or family member along for the fight, you may not be ready to read Life’s That Way: A Memoir. Life’s That Way: A Memoir is a series of emails that Beaver sent to friends and family to update them on his wife’s fight against lung cancer and his struggle to take care of his autistic little girl. I have had family members lose and win the fight, and when I was reading Life’s That Way: A Memoir, a friend was in the middle of the battle and posting similar posts about her life. I found it difficult to read Life’s That Way: A Memoir because it hit too close to home. I considered returning it to the library untouched, but that just isn’t the kind of person that I am if the book is well written, and it emotionally resonates.
If you did not love Jim Beaver before, you certainly would after reading Life’s That Way: A Memoir. If he can write that well and powerfully in a moment of crisis with little to no sleep and under incredible strain, what can he do if he is well-rested and not in crisis mode. There are times when I forgot that it was real and got caught up in the momentum of events, but reality hit me whenever more bad news arrived, and I thought, “Oh no, why did he decide to take that turn….oh, he didn’t. That happened.”
Life’s That Way: A Memoir is a literary sucker punch that you may not be able to handle. Joan Didion and Beaver could meet for coffee.