How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over

by Theo Pauline Nestor

Book Overview

"I feel like I've joined an enormous club, something like the Veterans of Foreign Wars. We are weary with battle fatigue and sometimes even gripped by nostalgia for the good old, bad old days, but our numbers are large," writes Theo Pauline Nestor in this wry, fiercely honest chronicle of life after divorce.

Less than an hour after confronting her husband over his massive gambling losses, Theo banishes him from their home forever. With two...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307346773
• ISBN13: 9780307346773
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A Must Read!

I loved this book from beginning to end. Nestor is a fabulous writer-- her beautiful prose is filled with wit, moxie, and grace. From the first page, she pulled me into her tenacious journey of strength and survival. She writes with passion and inspiration and, even in the face of heartache, great hope. Nestor examines divorce's sadness and loss with deep wisdom. Being a divorced, single woman myself, I identified with her all along the way. Her humor and insight has helped me reexamine my own experience and move toward greater healing. I loved this book! I would--and do--recommend it to all of my friends. Carlene Cross author of Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith

Nestor nails post-divorce challenges

Theo Pauline Nestor nails the challenges faced by newly divorced, middle-aged mothers with honesty and laugh-out-loud self-effacing humor. This very likable narrator moves from the isolation and ennui of feeling like a broken, beleaguered societal outsider to a self-sufficient, mostly happy and contented woman who has reclaimed the "rawness of spirit" she had as a girl. She compassionately exposes what she sees as her failings and then disproves them as she courageously negotiates one pivotal event after another. Nestor, used to being the helper, has to learn to ask for - and accept - help from friends, relatives and former adversaries in her basic desire to "hunt, gather and keep shelter warm" for her two girls. As she detaches from feeling like a "criminal" for breaking up her family, she focus on her girl-family's needs. After exploring her own experience as a child of divorce she finds that she is capable of creating an "altered" family where all can feel safe and thrive. Nestor provides an inspiring road map for new divorcees, citing many good references that helped her and her children move through the common shock, confusion and adjustment to divorce to a place of acceptance that brings with it the ability to trust, laugh and love. Her book is smart, funny and insightful.

This is a page-turner and a great resource...

As one who reads mostly for pleasure, Nestor's memoir is an amazingly rich, easy, enjoyable read. The kind of book I looked forward to having a moment with at the end of my busy day. Chock full of intriguing characters and twists. As a therapist, I will be recommending this to clients: anyone whose life has been upset by divorce should have (and keep) this book. Men and women alike. It will provide perspective, ideas, resources, and best of all, humor. There are lots of books about divorce out there, but nothing quite as special as this!

Warm and funny!

How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed is a warm and funny memoir that manages to encompass much more than just the author's divorce. Her family history is intricately woven into the narrative, giving the reader a larger sense of not only what this experience was like, but what it means to her and her children personally. Her honesty is really engaging, plus it's laugh-out-loud funny!

Never divorced, never married, loved this book!

Theo Nestor's account of the end of her marriage had me riveted from beginning to end. I'm single and have never been married or divorced,but Nestor's tale transcended those demographics. Hers is really a story of transformation -- of falling apart and putting herself back together again. All of us are confronted at times with losing or never getting the life we've envisioned. Theo's story reminds me that along with loss comes gain -- that of honing away at our layers until we find the essence of who we really are. You'll love this story and her writing -- vivid, honest, funny and engaging.