Here are some reviews of Bittersweet.
From the Globe and Mail
By Stephen Clare
December 13, 2008
In a testament to the ages-old maxim that states ‘spiritual awakenings are usually preceded by rude awakenings,’ Fredericton-based writer Philip Lee comes clean with some compelling revelations surrounding his first marriage, subsequent divorce and second marriage in his latest work; Bittersweet: Confessions of a Twice-Married Man.
Lee is a multi-award winning journalist and author whose past works include Home Pool: the Fight to Save the Atlantic Salmon and the bestselling Frank: the Life and Politics of Frank McKenna.
It should come as no surprise, then, that he puts his fact-finding skills to work with this surprisingly candid and hopeful tale of second chances.
After falling for a co-worker, Lee declares his new-found feelings to his wife. Opting out of his marriage, he sets up shop in the summer residence of his youth along the Bay of Fundy, where he and his brother Walter – who is also walking through marital troubles – manage to turn the old house into a home, keeping each other company through what Lee comes to call the ‘dark year’. It is here that the author begins his journey of rediscovery.
“Staying together for the sake of the children might make sense for some people and indeed might be the most reasonable solution for many troubled marriages. In my case, I would have either had to be dishonest about my feelings or had to pursue happiness outside the marriage and live some kind of parallel life…the simple fact is I couldn’t do it. This doesn’t make me a better man. It just makes me who I am. I made my choice and I had to accept my lot.”
Like many separated parents, the author’s immediate concern is for the well-being of his three children, and Lee goes to great length to both assure their happiness and ease his own remorse. To his credit, at no point does he lay blame at the feet of his ex-wife, choosing instead to undertake the more trying task of examining his own character defects and shortcomings. Along the way he questions not only his own moral make-up, but the very nature of the decisions that we make in our everyday lives.
“In the end, I had to acknowledge that the pain I brought to the lives of my former wife and my children was not collateral damage. It was a direct hit. How could my pursuit of happiness be considered something good when the most obvious manifestation of it in the lives of the people I loved was hardship and loss?”
Over the ensuing months and years the author struggles to bring to light not only the depth and darkness of his own confusion, but also the many conflicting ideas about modern marriage. Balancing the musings of Aristotle, Homer, Freud, Bertrand Russell and Scott Peck with his own personal observations upon the changing nature of the institution, Lee is careful never to over-intellectualize his experiences, instead finding a safe middle ground between head and heart, expressing equal measures of ideas and emotion. By presenting a variety of perspectives he does well to avoid the pitfall of redefining matrimony, instead inviting readers to re-examine their own notions of sacred union.
Thankfully, hindsight has afforded him the benefit of lessons learned, and if insanity can be defined as ‘repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results,’ then his second marriage is in much better shape. The couple adapt to a new life in the New Brunswick Capital City, moving forward in their respective careers, tending to Lee’s children and walking through the lengthy legal process of adopting one of their own from China.
And while Lee’s story appears poised for a happy ending on the outside, only time will tell what more will emerge from his internal landscape in the coming years.
For now, however, the author has given us an entertaining and informative look into the nature of relationships, marriage, divorce, parenting and the onslaught of emotions that accompany each. Reading more like a first-hand account of life on the front-lines of love than a philosophical chronicling of a mid-life crisis or self-help digest – and implying that we only become disillusioned because we have illusions to begin with – Bittersweet is an honest and moving account of one man’s struggle to step away from a castle made of sand to re-build upon the rock of truth.
From David Eddie’s blog (Mack Daddy), November 15, 2008:
I know Mack’s been sounding almost like a book-reviewer lately but there is one more book I want to talk about: Bittersweet: Confessions of a Twice-Married Man, by East Coast author Philip Lee.
Because the farther I read into this book, the more I think it is a genuinely important book.
It’s a book I could see both men and women getting a great deal out of. The author, Philip Lee, is by turns deeply thoughtful, honest, funny, and insightful about the breakup of his first marriage and the eventual resuscitation of his love-life, and remarriage.
But it never feels like an overshare. He is respectful of his first wife’s need for privacy and also of his kids. He hits just the right notes, drawing insightful comparisons to Ulysses-in fact, the lesson he draws from the story of Ulysses (who returns to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus after 20 years) is worth the price of the book alone:
Basically, that it is impossible to live without causing pain. Ulysses causes pain to his wife, to his son, to the families of the members of his crew who die in his service- but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have gone on his quest. he has a chance at one point to settle down on a paradisal island with the goddess Kalypso, to be immortal and live without struggle. But he doesn’t want it-he wants to push on, to continue his struggle, and if it means to inflict pain, he still wants to return to his mortal wife Penelope.
(Odysseus cheats numerous times on Penelope during his absence, which makes him a grey-area hero, but that of course was what made him the first truly modern hero: neither all good nor all bad: part hero, part anti-hero.)
It’s quite funny, too. I met the author the other night for a couple of drinks, and said to him: “The stuff with your brother is gold, I would have totally milked it for laughs.”
But that’s more me, and my style, than his. He has a more thoughtful, considered, big-picture style.
Still, the stuff with his brother is freakin’ hilarious. Both ejected from long-term relationships, they move to a ramshackle old family farmhouse and descend into ultra-bachelor odd-couple-dom. They leave the windows open, they burn wood for heat, the place is over-run with squirrels. Every morning the ritual is: the brother goes out with a shotgun and tries to kill as many squirrels as possible. Net result: zero.
Then they make coffee: one holds the coffee pot, the other one heats it with a blow-torch. Then they take a shower by standing under a specially rigged bucket they’ve drilled holes into and filled with warm water, etc.
Instead of fixing the 1,001 things that need fixing, his brother decides what they need is a sauna. Which he starts to build, but then the whole project spirals out of control…
Bittersweet is the tale of his slow climb back into civilization, and the world of women. It is an extremely civilized, and civilizing read, good for any man to read who has ever been through anything similar, or been curious about it; and a perfect gift for any woman who thinks men don’t think or reflect.
Because it an extremely thoughtful, reflective, and I might even say profound book.
Thank you Philip Lee. May God fill your sails and speed your ship on its odyssey.
From the Sun newspapers:
New Brunswick writer Philip Lee lets his emotional life hang out in this story of broken marriage, new love and a new beginning for his family. The journalist grew up in Saint John, became a husband and father in his early 20s, struggled to make a living for his growing family, only to see it all fall apart when he became attracted to a fellow journalist, Deb. He and his brother Walter, also on the rebound from a failed relationship, moved back into the former family home, and he tried to keep in touch with his children. Eventually he and Deb married and coped with the comings and goings of three children — his ex-wife had moved to the American South. When Deb decided she wanted to adopt a daughter from China, Lee was anxious but when it happened, he writes about his resurgence as a parent. An engrossing story of love and loss. (Goose Lane Editions)
From Sweetspot.ca, October 2008:
It’s a thoughtful and highly personal account of pulling through divorce to land happily in a second marriage (with a Brangelia-esque adopted baby in the mix). The talented journalist captures nuanced detail of every heart-wrenching event. He articulates his relationships just like we wish all men would – openly and honestly.
Be sure to keep a highlighter handy while you read (our copy is dog-eared at every one of Lee’s brilliant insights into love).
Sarah Ratchford
The Brunswickan (UNB student newspaper)
September 2008
Divorce. In today’s world of instant gratification and fickleness, the D-word comes up quite a lot. Marriage is no longer “for better or worse”; rather, it pretty much stops at “for better.”
About half of my friends have divorced parents, myself included. Divorce no longer strikes terror into people’s hearts as a disruption of family life since it has become so common. We now have many different conceptions of the word “family,” and the nuclear version really doesn’t exist anymore.
In Philip Lee’s latest book, Bittersweet: Confessions of a Twice-Married Man, he re-examines divorce and the reasons behind it in a new and refreshing light.
The autobiographical novel is essentially a philosophical attempt to define the nature of love. Lee writes about the struggle of rebuilding his life and those of his children after his first marriage falls apart.
Lee, a professor of Journalism at STU, was educated at Dal in Classics. He uses references to Homer’s The Odyssey to drive home his points, using the story to draw parallels with his own life.
The professor is incredibly brave in publishing his very personal story. He poses rhetorical questions such as “How could I allow myself to seek happiness in my life when the members of my family were suffering because of my actions?” at the beginning of the story. His feelings of guilt and sorrow are tangible. As the story progresses, however, Lee becomes at peace with himself. He is able to answer his questions about himself and life and love, and the answer to all of them is essentially the same: human beings are not perfect.
No matter how hard we strive to make our lives perfect and fit cookie-cutter ideals, this just isn’t going to happen. We are all individuals with both strengths and shortcomings, and all we can do about our shortcomings is be aware of them and minimize them as much as possible.
Lee’s story is as much a tale of self-exploration as one of the woes of divorce. The reader sees him regenerate his life and allow him to find new love and arrive at self acceptance. His words have a calming effect, and his insight can be applied to the life of virtually anyone.
The story is steeped in deeply profound wisdom.
“It took me many years to understand that this thing we called home is not a place on this earth,” Lee writes, regarding his search for the perfect dwelling in which to raise a family, “but a place of the mind and imagination where we can find love, friendship, and freedom.”
Philip Lee offers his own frank interpretation of a variety of other issues which are essential to leading a life of happiness, which he says, in agreement with Aristotle, is the highest human aspiration. He writes on gender issues in a new light, going so far as to admit that his psychiatrist told him that men can become childlike in marriage – and not arguing with her. He also suggests that in order to live the best life possible, we must perform regular maintenance on ourselves, our lives, and our loves, as well as daily tasks.
Lee’s story is set right here in Fredericton, with some references to Saint John, Bathurst, the Mirimichi, and the shore of the Bay of Fundy. This alone makes the story really hit home, as virtually any Maritimer knows what it feels like to walk along the shore, the smell of salt in the air and pebbles crunching underfoot. The setting made it easier for me to apply what Lee had to say to my own situations.
The one downfall I found in Bittersweet had nothing to do with Lee’s writing. The problem was that he continually referenced the works of great writers such as Tolstoy, Austen, and Coleridge. The story will veer away from Lee’s own narrative and quote these authors, which really isn’t necessary to the story.
Lee is a great writer by himself, he doesn’t need these other voices to tell his tale.
One gets the feeling that all of Lee’s most hidden, most painstakingly thought out feelings and ideas are out on the page, written there in order to help whoever is reading it. This is a self-help book in disguise.
Bittersweet is both a captivating tale of a humble, intelligent man, as well as a philosophical work which could help almost anyone to improve his or her life.
Fredericton Daily Gleaner by Alan Sears, September 20. 2008:
When I first read the subtitle, Confessions of a Twice Married Man, I wondered if the book would have anything to say to me, a once married man who has managed to sustain a happy relationship for more than 30 years. I needn’t have worried for Lee ranges over territory familiar to most of us.
Almost all have experienced the ‘worrisome years,’ when trying to get a career started while learning to live together is often complicated by the stresses of becoming new parents and wondering where the money is going to come from to pay the bills. Any who have been together for a length of time will know of the challenges and struggles that come as partners change. And I don’t know any honest persons who from time to time haven’t felt like they have screwed up irrevocably as a spouse or parent or child.
Lee delves into all of these areas, letting us see the intimate details of his struggles to end one relationship and build another and all the while hold on to connections with his children and the rest of his family.
He draws widely on writers from Homer through Tolstoy and Thoreau to M. Scott Peck to both stimulate reflection on key elements of love and relationships and to contextualize his own experience within broader human themes.
I admit that I do not always agree with the conclusions Lee comes to, in fact sometimes I profoundly disagree. But then he doesn’t ask me to agree. His often startling vulnerability and openness invites readers to draw from his experience both the assurance that someone else has been where they are and points of departure for their own reflection on loving others.
Linda Rogers, Open Book Toronto, November 2008:
Some books I approach with trepidation. Sci-fi, no, fantasy, no, self-help, no, First Nations by whitecomers, no (despite having written a book in “Cowichan English” myself).
Red Alert. Sitting on my desk is bittersweet, and someone quoted on the cover is telling me I owe it to myself to read this book. To hell I do, the rearing anarchist cries. But I promised.
Before long, I am sucked in, not by the narrative of survival, Lee’s “dark year” following his departure from his marriage, but by the notion of “love as a verb,” his mantra for a very readable book.
Lee is a journalist with a detective’s eye for evidence, much of it metaphysical, for human behaviour. What delights is his digression. The presbyterian minister’s son finds “church” while fly fishing in a river pool.
The brainless voyageur ( not my metaphor, footnote to Robert Priest) goes sailing with a Greek hero.
Water is his medium, literally and metaphorically. He lives on an island, the refuge of those who live in their minnds. I know this type well. We are called writers. My youngest son used to say to me, “Earth calling Mother,” when I went flying, particularly while driving dangerously (in the parking lane).
Writers tend to wander even when they are sitting still. It is an out of body life, where every moment, tragic or comic is justified. “That will make a good poem,” I say when our cat is hit by a car, or a tree falls on our house.
The voyage is compared to that of Odysseus. Like Homer’s hero, Lee is flawed. While Penelope wove and unwove her tapestry to deceive her suitors, her warrior husband was wandering around the Greek Islands bonking every goddess in sight. Lee, a newspaperman working late, fell off his office chair.
There are no excuses for hurting one’s children and, contrary to the shibboleth, “kids are tough,” they are not. Children are irreparably damaged by trauma, whether it is marital discord, divorce or abuse. I don’t know how we get around that and neither does Lee. His mental refuge is no refuge for the kids. They want Mummy and Daddy, and they want to be safe. Period.
Odysseus arrived home. Lee may or not have. He still has his interesting baggage. At the end of the journey, we still know him better than the others in his life. The most three-dimensional “character” is his buddy brother, also a wanderer.
Bittersweet is most alive in its sidebars, which may explain a lot about the lives of artists and those who love them.
“Beautifully written . . . informative, entertaining and filled with hope . . . a must read for anyone who has walked through the pain of divorce and the joy of re-discovering love.” – Stephen Clare, The Book Club, Halifax
