Heartbreak

A Personal and Scientific Journey

By: Florence Williams

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Paperback | 29 March 2023 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
304 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.0 x 14.0 x 1.7

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When her twenty-five-year marriage suddenly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. But when she starts feeling physically sick, losing weight and sleep, she sets out in pursuit of rational explanation. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts so much-and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong.

Soon Williams finds herself on a surprising path that leads her from neurogenomic research laboratories to trying MDMA in a Portland therapist's living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that restore her. She tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks while looking at pictures of her ex, and discovers that our immune cells listen to loneliness. Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she seeks out new relationships and ventures into the wilderness in search of an extraordinary antidote: awe.

With warmth, daring, wit, and candor, Williams offers a gripping account of grief and healing. Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.

Industry Reviews

"In Heartbreak [Williams] reprises [the] determined, deep-dive reporting [of The Nature Fix], this time seeking the same healing for her shattered self... This is one of the joys of reading a gifted science journalist: You learn so much stuff without having to study it yourself... [A] wise and brave book." -- Marianne Szegedy-Maszak - The Washington Post
"[Readers] will learn as much from Williams's intellectual rigor as from her fearlessness in surviving a broken heart." -- Sebastian Modak - The New York Times Book Review
"What a powerful book. Williams captures the heartache of divorce and the crooked road back to living. Colorful, imaginative and poignant-Heartbreak tells a gripping story of courage, sex, and adventure packed with all the newest hard science on romance and attachment. I've studied love for over 40 years and I was taking notes. It's a magnificent, wise, and remarkable read!" -- Helen Fisher, author of The Anatomy of Love
"A masterful blend of investigative reporting and personal narrative, chock-full of fascinating insights, gorgeous nature writing and an ample helping of compassion (some of which Williams deservedly reserves for herself)." -- Alexis Burling - The San Francisco Chronicle
"Williams, by investigating the science behind a broken heart, turns her personal experiences into something universal and, in the end, useful." -- Prospect

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