As sung by Billie Holiday, the achingly romantic “Everything I Have Is Yours” became one couple’s favorite song—and eventually inspired a memoir of the same name. Subtitled “a marriage,” Eleanor Henderson’s latest book explores her two-decade relationship with her husband, Aaron, and the challenges of living with his drug use and undiagnosed chronic illness.
Henderson, associate professor and chair of the writing department at IC, is a fiction writer with two acclaimed novels. This time, however, she turned to memoir because “living in a fictional universe would have required too much energy,” she says. “I needed to write about the experience I was living through—writing gave me a sense of control.”
In 2019, Henderson had received the Ryan Professorship in the Humanities award for this book project, but with a household often in crisis, she had to wake at 5 a.m. each day to carve out some writing time. “It’s always a miracle when a book happens,” she says. “Some days it felt really difficult to write, but it helped me see what was happening in my life and my marriage—holding it all on the page is the way I understand.”
Her narrative interweaves chapters relating recent years with others of the young couple’s evolving relationship: they met when she was a 17-year-old senior in high school, and he was 24 and working in a record store. Throughout the book, short “irony” and “theory” chapters appear spontaneously as the author finds dark humor in her situation and offers possible medical explanations for Aaron’s enigmatic illness.
This history is a highly detailed, relentlessly honest examination of surviving with suffering—Aaron’s sleeplessness, bloody rashes, pain, childhood trauma, and self-medication with drugs and alcohol all take their toll on him, his wife, and their two young sons. Determined to solve his medical mystery, Henderson doggedly researches the symptoms, seeks advice from professionals, attends conferences. Throughout, she continues to chronicle the evolution and growth—of herself and her marriage—via introspection, therapy, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
In “Everything I Have Is Yours,” Henderson admits being “drawn to difficulty.” The roller coaster ride of her story, which includes the death of both their fathers, is countered by the steadiness of her commitment, to Aaron and her two sons. She acknowledges the good times—and there are many, moments of affection and intimacy—as well as the tough and even crazy times. But as there’s no cure, no ideal harmony to end on, Henderson says, she concludes with a new perspective and a “radical acceptance” of not knowing.
With this memoir, Henderson’s first goal was survival. Another goal was to reach those suffering from complex family issues, to let them know they’re not alone. Drafting her memoir during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was buoyed by a fresh understanding of individual health versus public health—and by the empathy for suffering that appeared nationwide. Zooming into people’s private worlds, their bedrooms, we’ve all been reminded we have lives at home, Henderson says. “It’s possible I over-trusted, but I wanted to model ways we could be real with each other. We ask our students to bring their whole selves to the classroom—I want my students to know I’m a person and not just playing a role."