Iris Yvonne Bialosky’s death in March 2020 unleashed a torrent of emotions in her daughter, Jill --- grief, guilt, confusion, doubt. Now, with her poet’s eye for detail and novelist’s flair for storytelling, Jill Bialosky presents a profoundly moving elegy of her mother’s life --- telling Iris’ story in reverse order. Starting with her mother’s end and the physical/cognitive decline that led her to a care home, Bialosky traces Iris through her battle with depression, the tragedy of her youngest daughter’s suicide, her strained and short second marriage, the death of her beloved first husband, which left her, at 25 years old, to care for three daughters under the age of three. We experience her joyful first marriage and busy teenage years, as well as the trauma of losing her own mother at just eight years old.

An unnamed narrator’s life is unraveling. Her only child has left home, and her 20-year marriage is strained. Anticipation about her soon-to-be-released book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she passes her days teaching at a boys’ prep school, spending her off-hours sequestered in the museum's austere galleries, she is haunted by memories of a yearlong friendship with a colleague, a fellow poet struggling with his craft. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the pantheon of gods assume remarkably vivid lives of their own, forcing her to choose between reality and myth.

For Jill Bialosky, certain poems stand out like signposts at pivotal moments in a life: the death of a father, adolescence, first love, leaving home, the suicide of a sister, marriage, the birth of a child, the day in New York City the Twin Towers fell. As Bialosky narrates these moments, she illuminates the ways in which particular poems offered insight, compassion and connection, and shows how poetry can be a blueprint for living. In POETRY WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, Bialosky recalls when she encountered each formative poem, and how its importance and meaning evolved over time, allowing new insights and perceptions to emerge.

With a rising career as a partner at an esteemed gallery, Edward Darby strives not to let ambition, money, power and his dark past corrode the sanctuary of his domestic and private life. But when a celebrated artist controlled by her insecurities betrays him, and another very different artist awakens his heart and stirs up secrets from his past, Edward will find himself unmoored from his marriage, his work and the memory of his beloved father. And when the finalists of an important prize are announced, Edward soon learns that betrayal comes in many forms, and that he may be hurtling toward an act that challenges his own notions about what comprises a life worth living.

On April 15, 1990, Jill Bialosky’s 21-year-old sister Kim climbed into a car in the garage, turned on the ignition, and fell asleep. Now, Jill recreates her sister’s inner life, and the events and emotions that led her to take her life on this particular night.