Disassembly Required: A Memoir of Midlife Resurrection

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.

I scrolled to voicemail on my husband’s cell phone. Instantly I heard a woman’s voice I’d never heard before.

“I love you. Call me at home,” the voice said.

My hand trembled. I inhaled my tears and stuffed my wails inside so the children, one floor above, wouldn’t hear. 

“Want to come over here tomorrow and have a little time to be private instead of meeting at the office?” the voice continued.

Fear exploded in my chest. I couldn’t swallow. I wanted to bolt the doors and keep my family in suspended animation, safe and rolled up in their covers until I could figure out what to do next…

A raw and riveting memoir, Disassembly Required invites readers 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.