The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards

After the sudden death of her husband, a woman unearths surprising revelations about the man she was married to for seventeen years. A compulsively readable, darkly funny, posthumous love story about loss, grief, and unresolved relationships.

Jessica Waite’s successful, charismatic husband, Sean, is on his way home from a business trip when he collapses in a Houston airport. Having begun the day as a wife, by noon she is a widow and the sole living parent to their nine-year-old son. The day after Sean’s funeral, Jessica receives a box of his personal effects and discovers the secrets her husband had been hiding—including drug abuse, compulsive spending, infidelity, and a massive porn cache.

Jessica hides these revelations from her grief-stricken son while also trying to erase Sean from her own life. She rids their bedroom of his belongings. She grants herself a “divorce.” She conceives a revenge plan to unleash on Christmas Eve. But when things start happening that Jessica can’t explain—like signs from beyond and strange coincidences pointing her in the direction of forgiveness— she is forced to choose: Endure the bitter aftermath of her old life? Or reconsider her views?

Written with dark humor in the vein of Liz Feldman’s series Dead to Me and Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died, The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards is a searing and hilarious memoir that asks the question: Does death signify the end of a relationship, or can there be an afterlife epilogue?

When life handed Jessica Waite a riveting, horrifying and surprisingly beautiful story, she transformed herself into a writer. Her debut memoir, The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards, became an instant bestseller, featured by The Washington Post, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, The Toronto Star, and many other outlets. Jessica lives on Treaty 7 territory in the city of Calgary, Alberta. You can find her at JessicaWaite.work.