Disassembly Required

A Memoir of Midlife Resurrection

By: Beverly Willett

Narrated by: Emily Durante

Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

After a small-town southern girl turned New Yorker watches her American Dream implode, she musters the courage to begin again - resurrecting the powerful woman her daughters had glimpsed during their family's darkest times.

A raw and riveting memoir, Disassembly Required invites listeners along, moment by gut-wrenching moment, on one woman's journey from betrayal and devastation to resilience and recovery. From learning of her husband's affair, to family court, to life as a single mother, Beverly Willett perseveres in resisting injustice, the loss of her family unit, and the sale of the beautiful Brooklyn Brownstone her family had called home.

Willett knows selling her house will require taking inventory of her possessions; she does not realize it will require taking inventory of herself. But as she surrenders her hopes for a life that hasn't turned out the way she imagined, the world opens back up. And Willett leaps toward it, embracing uncertainty.

Disassembly Required is a story of quiet struggle and persistence. Unflinchingly honest in its examination of the discomforts of change, it celebrates the opportunities for transformation.

©2019 Beverly Willett (P)2020 Tantor

Great read!

Disassembly required is a story about not giving up even when times are tough. It’s a story about hope and healing. I recommend this book to anyone who needs a pick me up or needs some inspiration. You’ll be glad you read it!

You are not alone

For anyone who ever experienced the life trauma of being abandoned by a spouse or even a significant other this book allows you to fight on through what lies ahead. I’ve read it twice as my wife left me under similar circumstances and the book comforted me knowing that I am not alone in sorting through one’s past that is an exercise in pain.

Thinking about divorce or in the process? Read this now!

If you’re the one leaving and you have kids and you’re not the mother (primary parent), then please read this book. Beverly puts a much needed spotlight on the ugly underbelly of divorce court and its broken system of judges and lawyers capable of incestuous amplification and unchecked enforcement of their skewed personal views that completely devalue the importance of full time mothers. Once you get to family court, anything could happen. Through her own story, she shares the far-reaching, painful consequences of dealing with divorce in the courts. Beverly’s book was just what I needed to hear to know that I’m doing the right thing. I’m going through a divorce right now, and I’m the one leaving, and I’m agreeing to everything my wife needs to continue living the life that she thought we were building together. We're trying to do an uncontested divorce to make sure we can specify what she needs to live a happy life according to her, not the court. Bottom line here... if you're the one who is leaving, you shouldn’t do anything else to further shatter the lives of your family just because you decided this isn’t the life that you want anymore. Do the right thing.

Choosing the only available choice.

Here it is. This lays out what divorce does to one. And to those around us. We face the difficulties life gives us as best we can. We have no other choice.

Some nice insight but a bit tedious

I appreciate some of the insight, introspection, and recounting of the journey losing her abode. Although some specific details are truly interesting, I felt it very tedious to have to listen to her unpacking of every little thing. I have my own clutter to get through, I really would rather have not spent so much time going through all of hers. It feels like this book could have been half the length it was and still have covered the meaningful ground. I kept with it curious to see where she was going with all of it and ended up being less than thrilled to have spent so much time ending up in a predictable place. I don’t know why I expected more, I guess that is my lesson to ruminate on.