A Separate Piece

Mo Duffy understands that explosions are a release of energy, and that during this reaction, energy is changed, not destroyed. When her world was shattered, she called upon these principles of quantum mechanics, which she had learned in her twenties. “I had this recurring image of my life, as if I’d seen it explode with my own eyes,” she writes. “There was nothing left, except radiant white light.” But what did this new form of energy mean for Duffy?

Lately memoirs have splintered into recollections of niche topics, so they often examine not an entire life but a segment of one. The narrower the focus, the more pointed the question of who the book is for. Duffy’s second entry in this genre, Radiant. White. Light, centres on the breakdown of her marriage. This collection of poems and stories is not a revenge narrative nor a testimony bristling with anger. The snag in the sixteen-year union is revealed on the first page: her husband wanted to be with a man. With this knowledge, we quickly understand the tenor of the account that follows.

After their separation, Duffy was left with the muddle of holding on to two truths at once: that she and her husband still loved each other and that they could no longer be a couple. While she details her own torment in the aftermath, she reveals little about the circumstances that led to this point or indeed much about her husband. Instead, readers are dropped straight into the fallout: How is she to function? How is she to look after the children? How does she become someone who can handle this?

Initially, Duffy tried to maintain as much normalcy in their lives as possible. They had not long ago bought a house — the home they planned to retire in. Perhaps she and her husband could still live together, despite their paths diverging? She was fighting “against convention, tradition, against the expectations of cultural norms.” She wished for an alternative to divorce, something of their own making.

In the sections recounted in prose, Duffy expresses herself in short, searching paragraphs, with an intimacy akin to journal entries. If prose is the medium where thoughts and ideas can sprawl and fester, her poetry is much more focused and direct. The poem “Culture Shift” adopts a tone of reflection, of wisdom gained with distance. Everyone was curious to know what had happened, and judgment came swiftly. As she dealt with her personal pain, Duffy found herself shouldering “the added weight of being cultural soldiers // to educate the masses that some endings can be beautiful.”

I wanted more about the unravelling of the marriage — the before stage. But as with those prying people she ran into at the supermarket, eager to “get the story straight,” perhaps it’s none of my business and not what this memoir is about. Duffy is more concerned with what comes after: the pain, the moving on, the settling in. It all takes time and a lot of mental energy, which is hard to summon when your life is falling apart. One day the strain became too much, and Duffy (who has epilepsy) returned to consciousness with a paramedic standing over her, after she had suffered a seizure.

The children were at the centre of this swirl — also at the centre of Duffy’s world — as she tried to keep meals on the table while answering difficult questions. When they asked what the difference was between bisexuality and heterosexuality, she saw it as an opportunity rather than a burden. “With the newness my family was experiencing,” she writes, “the last thing I wanted to do was to box it in with language.”

Before long, a separation agreement was reached, two homes were established, and the children started to stay with their father, which ripped away Duffy’s identity as a mother — if only for a few days. By herself for the first time in years, she bought adult food, planned a road trip, and, amid the chaos, leaned into creativity. She began to see change as something she might embrace, with more freedom, more spontaneity, more playfulness, more art: “The permission to be doing what I need to be doing.”

A few pages later, the poem “Divorce Is on Instagram” serves as a reminder of the ceaseless stream of advice and supposedly good intentions that can be found online, as self-proclaimed experts give their two cents’ worth while “peddling their wares.” For Duffy, it wasn’t the proffered opinions or the suggestions for wellness retreats but the distraction of channels dedicated to “octopuses and world health” and “farmers who walk with tiny lambs” that moved the dial on her emotional state.

Divorce is a process, which Duffy makes clear as she searches for stabilizing moments. The question of how to reorient her life while absorbing the shock of the pain remained a challenge. The poem “Re‑train” explores this emotional recalibration, as she compares herself to an old horse sent back to the stables to learn new ways. She longs to detach herself from her patterns of thinking, to allow change to fully take hold. “Come on neural pathways,” she begs, “save me now.” As in any period of grief, the milestones proved hardest to navigate. Their first Christmas apart, “Santa became a spreadsheet” as the holiday was broken up hour by hour to accommodate each side. “The family traditions were hijacked by both of us,” she writes. “Blood pressure went up.”

Duffy’s memoir unfolds over three acts: “Exploding Stars,” which deals with the initial shock; “Deep Space,” which tackles the transformation; and “Fusion,” where Duffy finds acceptance. In an afterword, she offers a “gentle spark” to those who might be feeling their own uncertainty or grief — and who may wish to tell their story. This switch to an encouraging outlook puts emphasis on the power of discovering oneself through writing and the relief it can offer: “You will find your authorial voice not through force, but through presence.”

Radiant. White. Light is at times poetic, at times emotional, and at times uneven. Heartache doesn’t inspire a neat narrative. The surge of despair, alongside the tedious task of living, can make for a disordered picture. But order is not the point here. For Duffy, who tracked this period of upset and renewal in her pink-covered journal, the intention is to document the mess of it — to provide some assurance that getting to the other side is possible. The question of who this book is for lingers. The only conceivable answer is anyone who has ever suffered the misery of a broken heart.