The End of Normal

The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack

My rating:

4 stars—I really liked it.

My Thoughts:

This book was beautiful in parts, but haunting on the whole. I felt deep, genuine emotion from the author.
The downside…the author wrote this so quickly after her husband’s death that some of the emotion was too raw. The war with his family was hard to read about. I wanted to scream at all of them.

Many reviewers found Stephanie to be unlikable and I could see that point. There were times that I couldn’t understand where she was coming from. I felt she really created and fed on the drama around her. One part, as an example, is where she demands that she and the children change their names (but she is using Madoff to sell books?). And when she has a complete meltdown about some flowers that her brother-in-laws girlfriend sent and put her name on. And the way she was so threatened by his first wife and his older children. It was heartbreaking when she didn’t want to give away some of his things to his older children after his death.

And then there is the fact that she completely blames his parents for his suicide. But people go through things much more difficult than this in life and they don’t choose to take their own life. His suicide is on him, really, no one can be blamed for a decision that he ultimately made. She could have inserted something here about helping people who show signs of being suicidal, but she didn’t. Only the blame game, which helps no one.

Overall, I felt really strongly for her and her loss. She was raw and honest and still has a long way to go through her grief.

Description from Goodreads.com:

“A memoir of the author that tells her idyllic wedding to Mark, Bernard Madoff's son, on Nantucket, what it was really like to be a part of the Madoff family, the build-up to Bernard's confession, and the media frenzy that followed.”