Book review: Painfully raw divorce memoir

Chris Jones chronicles the dissolution of his marriage, charts the difficult terrain of the fall-out from that fissure, and embarks on a journey of emotional rehabilitation

For much of 'Legs, Hearts, Minds: Loss and its Remedies'  Chris Jones performs a forensic and laudable examination of the flaws in his own character.

• Legs, Hearts, Minds: Loss and its Remedies 
• Chris Jones 
• Penguin Random House, €24.00

The most talked-about divorce memoir of the moment is Belle Burden’s Strangers: Memoirs of a Marriage.

That book made a swift journey from bestseller with a film almost instantaneously in the works to scandalously

beleaguered following questions about the veracity of some of the material.

Like most works in the genre, it was written from the female perspective. There doesn’t seem to be as many — or hardly any — male accounts of the split that affects half of all married couples.

This is the space then colonised by Chris Jones with his remarkable Legs, Hearts, Minds: Loss and its Remedies.

A celebrated Canadian magazine journalist and author, he chronicles the dissolution of his marriage, charts the difficult terrain of the fall-out from that fissure, and embarks on a journey of emotional rehabilitation.

It is raw, unfiltered, painfully honest, and beautifully written. Not an easy read, by any stretch. 

How could it be when in one scene he flits from standing on the Golden Gate Bridge pondering suicide to taking a knife into the shower to end his life?

The phrase ‘Legs, Hearts, Minds’ is borrowed from Sean Dyche, the English football manager who has deployed that as the mantra for his hard-working teams striving to compete in the English Premier League.

Jones uses it because, as he rebuilds his life, following the fortunes of Burnley FC becomes a balm for his tortured soul.

Surely the first time the denizens of Turf Moor have been described like that in a sentence. 

The club is an heirloom via his mother, a native of the Lancashire town.

Jones explores his ancestral and emotional connection to Burnley FC

There are evocative Hornbyesque passages throughout where Jones explores his ancestral and emotional connection to the club he then starts tracking assiduously from across the Atlantic Ocean where his parents (the father is Welsh) made their home.

More than a fan, he coaches kids’ soccer, plays in adult leagues, and at one stage post-divorce is spending so much time on the field, often writing about it for a living too, his friends consider staging an intervention.

In the end, this is much more than just a divorce memoir.

With shades of Frederick Exley’s rather dark A Fan’s Notes (Hornby decades before Hornby), sport courses through the narrative.

It provides a wonderful counterpoint to the darker (and worthwhile) mediations on his suffering after the fateful night he discovered his wife Amy was having an affair.

Jet-lagged upon returning from covering the European Championships, he opened her laptop and accidentally happened upon her texting on the phone (synced to the computer) with her lover.

Regardless of what television soap operas contend, there are no real winners in a divorce, and he dutifully outlines the difficult, complex dissolution of a marriage, the selling of the family home, and the grim scheduling of visitation with the kids involved.

A logistical as well as emotional nightmare for all concerned.

Although his wife was the adulterous party, Jones doesn’t spare himself and assumes his share of guilt for the break-up too.

For much of the book, he performs a forensic and laudable examination of the flaws in his own character.

Along the way he comes to terms with his anger issues and the massive chip on his shoulder often fuelling his professional determination.

“Not every day can be the funnest day ever,” writes Jones of learning to find happiness in small things. 

“But today might still be pretty great. If we spent time with the people we love, doing the things they love.

“And the more we love them, and the more they love these things, whatever they are, the better all our chances will be.”

Profound and thought-provoking stuff. Like this very fine book.