Beth Robbins’ “A Grief Sublime” Celebrates the Joy of Living
“A Grief Sublime,” local author Beth Robbins’ new memoir about the death of her husband, Steve “Sproutman” Meyerowitz, is as much a celebration as it is an in memoriam. And the book’s launch, on Saturday, Dec. 7 at Shakespeare & Company’s Bernstein Theatre, will be a party, stresses Robbins, a sort of “flip side to Steve’s funeral.” The event is free, there will be food and wine flowing, Rob Kelly will play piano, and special guests including Karen Allen, Alison Larkin, and James Warwick will abound.
Some readers will already be familiar with Meyerowitz, who was a local, Great Barrington-based celebrity, as well as a global expert on healthy living. His more than 10 books on sprouting, juicing, wheatgrass, and organic food have been translated into 11 languages. He was an in-demand public speaker and a person who brought joy to everyone around him.
Robbins’ memoir, her first published work, begins on the muggy night in September, 2015 when police officers arrived at her door. She attempts to ignore the flashing lights in the driveway, to prolong hearing the inevitable news. Steve has been in a car accident.
Interweaving excerpts from some of her favorite poets — Keats, Whitman, Melville, and Dickinson — Robbins, an English and drama teacher, invites us in as she mourns her husband of almost 30 years, and celebrates their life together and the family they created.
“I started journaling right away when Steve died,” says Robbins, “and after a few years that morphed into a book. The poets and poetry were so important as I was moving through this,” she says, but a lot of the feedback Robbins was getting was about her personal experience with grief, not about the poets. “It became clear that I needed to directly speak about what I was going through.”
The resulting book includes flashbacks to when the couple met, their wedding, the births of their three children. It chronicles the many ways Meyerowitz is still very much present in his family’s lives, and it celebrates his many talents. The title, “A Grief Sublime,” Robbins says is a bit of a riff on C.S. Lewis’s “A Grief Observed,” in which Lewis mourns the death of his wife. The world “sublime,” she says, is a term used often in the work of 19th-century poets. In the world of chemistry, “sublimation” means a transformation from one thing into something else. “Through grief,” she says, “I experience my marriage now as something different. The grief is devastating, but I don’t walk around in despair. I’ve experienced tremendous joy and extreme gratitude for [Steve’s] gifts. It’s all about transformation but not loss… metamorphosis.”
Both a print and an audiobook version of “A Grief Sublime” can be pre-ordered online, and will be available at the launch. Alison Larkin, the event’s emcee, is releasing the audiobook version, read by actress Karen Allen, through her company Alison Larkin Presents. Both Allen and actor James Warwick, who voices the poetry in the audiobook version, will read snippets at the launch. Oscar-winning film director Cynthia Wade will discuss her decision to make a film based on the book (currently in post-production), starring Robbins herself.
The event is also a chance for Robbins to introduce her new publishing company, Keats and Co., the publisher of “A Grief Sublime.” She’ll discuss the company’s next projects during the launch. Robbins is currently in the process of writing a novel and planning a book tour, among other events. “This is the beginning,” she says. “I’m looking for this to be a launch of a whole new chapter.”
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