Memoir: The Buddha at my Table -

Can you come sit at the table? Tammy Letherer’s husband of twelve years spoke these words on a Tuesday night, just before Christmas, after he had put their three children in bed. He had a piece of paper and two fingers of scotch in front of him. As he read from the list in his hand, his next words would shatter her world and destroy every assumption she’d ever made about love, friendship, and faithfulness.

In The Buddha at My Table, Letherer describes—in honest, sometimes painful detail—the dismantling of a marriage that encompasses the ordinary and the surreal, including the night she finds a silent, smiling Thai monk sitting at her dining room table. It’s this unexpected visitation, this personification of peace, that sticks with her as she listens to her husband say hurtful, shocking things—that he never loved her, he doesn’t believe in monogamy, and he wants to “wrap things up” with her in four weeks—and allows her to find the blessing in her husband’s betrayal. Ultimately, it’s when she realizes that she is participating in her life, not at its mercy, that she discovers the path to freedom.

“I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong. I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to learn to solve…I asked for love and God gave me people to help…I received nothing I wanted. I received everything I needed.”
– Hazrat Inayat Khan

What Readers are Saying:

Sometimes it’s hard to read a familiar tale

 5/5

I confess, It was hard for me to read until Tammy started freeing herself from her fears. The writing is stellar, the reader just finds Tammy’s personal struggle too familiar. I encourage you, the potential reader to dive in even if your own story is vastly different. Tammy has something important to say and her courage to bare her soul may be exactly what you need.

Dawn L. Anderson

Great language elevates this memoir of divorce

 5/5

I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d like this book, let alone love it. The Buddha and Divorce? I thought it would be some new-agey, cathartic, self-help tome. Instead, I found this to be a beautifully written, totally engaging memoir of a fully open and highly skilled writer who has been shaken to her bones by a surprise divorce and is asking you, the reader, to come with her as she figures it all out. From the first chapter, aptly titled “The Blow,” I was with her. Though she’s hardly the first person to be divorced, you feel her sense of betrayal and pain of rebuilding as she would—unique and singular-- through a combination of total authenticity and surprising language. As a sample, here are some of the phrases that had me turning down page corners and circling back: “I’m stunned at the audacity of this smackdown.” “If we were superheros, we would have capes covered with giant type and we would wordsmith each other to death.” “What color is her parachute, and will it match her shoes?” “I appreciate the inspiration, but I can’t resist swelling into grandiosity.” Though the end would have been more effective if closer to the resolution of the major conflict, I appreciate that the author wanted to bring us up to date. I’m seriously ready for this author to write fiction.

Rita Dragonette

Author

An Amazing Demonstration of Courage

 5/5

The author speaks with gut-wrenching candor about the trials and tribulations of being betrayed by her marriage partner and the roller-coaster of emotions that accompany what feels to be a complete upheaval of her life. This book offers many lessons for any reader experiencing the loss and sense of betrayal that accompanies the end of many marriages. This book is for you if you are feeling like you will never recover from feelings of loss.

Dee Long

What Readers are Saying:

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