One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir (40 page)

My poem,
I Praise My Destroyer
, ends with these stanzas:

But there was never a dull torment,

and it was grace to live

among the fruits of summer, to love by design,

and walk the startling Earth

for what seemed

an endless resurrection of days.

I praise life’s bright catastrophes,

and all the ceremonies of grief.

I praise our real estate—a shadow and a grave.

I praise my destroyer,

and will continue praising

until hours run like mercury

through my fingers, hope flares a final time

in the last throes of innocence,

and all the coins of sense are spent.

A
New York Times
Editors’ Choice

“Ackerman weds exquisite writing with profound insights, this time into speech and imagination. . . . I will confess I was deeply affected by
One Hundred Names for Love.
Ackerman and West’s is an extraordinary love story, and that a devastating stroke intervened has made it only more moving. . . . This book has done what no other has for me in recent years: it has renewed my faith in the redemptive power of love, the need to give and get it unstintingly, to hold nothing back, settle for nothing less, because when flesh and being and even life fall away, love endures. This book is proof.”

—Abraham Verghese,
New York Times Book Review

“Finally, this is a story about Ackerman’s love for West, a love beyond fathoming, and probably beyond words.”

—
Seattle Times

“Ackerman’s most enjoyable, intimate, and heartrending work yet.”

—Atul Gawande

“Inspiring, affecting.”

—Iain Finlayson
,
The Times
(London)

“Ackerman’s best writing and best book to date.”

—Antonio Damasio

“This is one of the most beautifully written biographies I have ever read. . . . Fans of Diane Ackerman already know how magically she weaves a story, and she does not disappoint in this latest memoir. Set aside some time to read about how Paul and Diane work together to ‘rewire’ his brain, discovering along the way that there really are one hundred names for love.”

—Jan Johnston,
The Columbian

“At once sobering and encouraging, it’s a tale of perseverance and accommodation, and an ode to playfulness and the brain’s plasticity. . . .
One Hundred Names for Love
marshals thousands of words in a testament to the power of creativity in language, life—and love.”

—Heller McAlpin,
Washington Post

“The best kind of love story.”

—Bill Thompson,
Bill Thompson’s Eye on Books

“An inspiring story of the triumph of love and creativity.”

—
Woman Alive

“A gorgeously engrossing, affecting, sweetly funny, and mind-opening love story of crisis, determination, creativity, and repair.”

—
Booklist
, starred review

“The end is a triumph, and their indomitable romance one to envy.”

—Karen Valby, EW.com

“It is the relationship between language and the self, and what is left when language vanishes, that lies at the heart of Ackerman’s memoir. . . . Really affecting.”

—Jane Shilling,
Daily Telegraph

“Exemplary. . . . [Ackerman] tells a sharp, compelling tale. Her writing about the brain is breathtaking; she paints a portrait of an eccentric and endearing marriage. . . . She squares up her new normal so movingly that she hollowed out my chest. . . . A splendid book.”

—Karen Long,
Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Moving. . . . Ms. Ackerman won me over . . . intensely engaging . . . intimate.”

—Paula Span,
New York Times
’ blog
“The New Old Age”

“A beautifully written memoir.”

—Emine Saner,
The Guardian

“Poignant and informative.”

Kathryn Lang,
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A companionable, heartfelt, informative book, this is much more than a memoir.”

—Rebecca McQuillan,
Scottish Sunday Herald

“If ever a medical memoir wrested beauty from the bleak,
One Hundred Names for Love
. . . is it. . . . [Ackerman’s] literary sparkle and startling imagery make this tale ten times the book it might have been.”

—Madeleine Kingsley,
Jewish Chronicle

Copyright © 2011 by Diane Ackerman

All rights reserved

First published as a Norton paperback 2012

Excerpt from “The Oven Bird” from
The Poetry of Robert Frost
, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright 1944 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Excerpts from
Life With Swan
by Paul West reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Copyright © 1999 by Paul West. All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact
W. W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830

Book design by JAM Design

Production manager: Anna Oler

Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Ackerman, Diane, 1948–

One hundred names for love : a stroke, a marriage, and the language of healing / Diane Ackerman.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-393-07241-9 (hardcover)

1. Ackerman, Diane, 1948—Health. 2. West, Paul, 1930—Health.
3. Cerebrovascular disease—Patients—Biography. I. Title.

RC388.5.A25 2011

616.8’10092—dc22

[B]

                                              2010053553

ISBN 978-0-393-0-34174-4 pbk.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0