{"id":210159,"date":"2025-09-08T12:18:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T12:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/210159\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T12:18:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T12:18:15","slug":"elizabeth-gilberts-new-memoir-is-her-most-personal-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/210159\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Gilbert\u2019s New Memoir Is Her Most Personal Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Gilbert is the master of memoir. Her first, 2006\u2019s Eat Pray Love<\/a>, needs no introduction. She followed the worldwide phenomenon with a second, Committed<\/a>, in 2010. And now she has written her third and perhaps most personal yet, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, Liberation<\/a>, due out this month.<\/p>\n

In case you haven\u2019t been following the ins and outs of Gilbert\u2019s romantic life, allow me to sum it up: By the end of her Eat Pray Love journey, which she embarked on after the dissolution of her first marriage, she had fallen in love with a Brazilian man. Committed is her book about marrying him. Naturally, her third memoir would be about her next significant relationship: this time, with her best friend, Rayya, whom she writes is the love of her life\u2014\u201cher most beautiful story.\u201d <\/p>\n

After years of friendship, which included Gilbert buying Rayya a church in New Jersey to live in, Gilbert ended her second marriage and confessed her love for Rayya, after Rayya was diagnosed with terminal liver and pancreatic cancer. What follows is a manic, frantic, twisted, and at times toxic relationship fueled by Rayya\u2019s drug addiction and what Gilbert now recognizes as her own love and sex addiction. (The climax comes when Gilbert contemplates ending their mutual suffering by plotting to switch Rayya\u2019s pills and murder her, though she doesn\u2019t actually go through with it.) Gilbert recounts this time of her life in All the Way to the River, culminating with Rayya\u2019s death and her own journey to sobriety that followed. <\/p>\n

A month ahead of its publication, I spoke to Gilbert from the New Jersey church where she now lives\u2014what she calls \u201cher favorite place in the whole world,\u201d as she pans her computer\u2019s camera to show me its stained glass windows and high ceilings. Below, we discuss Rayya, recovery, and why she started shaving her head (\u201cDear beauty industry, we\u2019re done,\u201d she says).<\/p>\n

\"twoCourtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Gilbert and Rayya in 2016.<\/p>\n

This is a very personal book. How are you feeling as you prepare to put it out into the world? <\/p>\n

I feel maybe naively relaxed. It\u2019s a lot less nerve-wracking to put the book out into the world than it was to live the story, and then, to write the story. Those were the hard parts. And there\u2019s a level at which my emotional work, my spiritual work, and my creative work around this whole last decade of my life is done. I feel like there\u2019s a completion to it in this book. So now, I shift into this entirely different person who\u2019s the ambassador of the book. And that\u2019s easier than sitting alone in a room hammering through this story again, trying to figure out how to tell this, and what to tell. All of those issues are now behind me. <\/p>\n

Speaking of your writing process, how did you decide what to include? As a reader, it seems like you put it all in, but I\u2019m wondering if there were things you held back?<\/p>\n

I put in everything that\u2019s about me and Rayya, and I tried to minimize anything that would expose anybody else. I tried really hard not to write anything about my ex-husband, and about other people who I was romantically or sexually involved with at various times. Whatever I could do to protect the identities of somebody, I did. <\/p>\n

And then, I sent the manuscript around to Rayya\u2019s closest friends and family a year ago when it was\u2026I mean, you think it\u2019s raw now? You should have seen it a year ago! But I just felt, the only way I can do this is just with deep transparency and total vulnerability; to just send it to everybody and say, \u201cThis is what I\u2019m working on. And before I go any farther with this, is there anything in here that you feel is unfair or untrue about Rayya?\u201d Because it wasn\u2019t that I minded sharing things about Rayya that were dark or edgy or raw, or even horrifying, because she herself was so open and so transparent and so much of a lover of the truth. I just wanted to make sure that there was nothing in there that wasn\u2019t true, or fair. <\/p>\n

\"twoCourtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Gilbert with Rayya\u00a0in 2010, pictured at the New Jersey church she now calls home.<\/p>\n

\"panelCourtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Rayya and Gilbert onstage in 2013.<\/p>\n

And so, there were a couple of things that a few people pointed out where we had differences of remembering or whatever, and I just took that stuff out because I didn\u2019t want there to be anything in there that was on the edge of, maybe this isn\u2019t exactly how it went. But aside from that, the mandate that I got from Rayya herself was to write the living shit out of this book, and to go full punk rock with it. And there was no way to accurately tell that story about Rayya and not tell all the equally dark stuff about me. And so it became obvious: If you\u2019re going to do this, then you\u2019ve got to expose yourself as much as she allowed herself to be exposed.
<\/p>\n

Including the murder scene didn\u2019t give you pause?<\/p>\n

No. I actually remember laughing when I wrote that first line of like, \u201cOh, I\u2019ll kill her.\u201d But then I thought, I don\u2019t know how to tell this…and then I thought, Just say what happened. I mean, that\u2019s the thing about memoir…and let\u2019s be clear, it\u2019s the attempted murder scene, please. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

Right. You don\u2019t actually admit to murder in the book. <\/p>\n

I just want to make that clear. I am such a sanctified holy person. I did not actually murder somebody\u2014I just plotted to murder somebody. So let\u2019s just make sure that we get that completely straight. [Laughs.] <\/p>\n

The thing about writing memoir versus writing fiction\u2014and I tend to kind of go back and forth between both\u2014is that there\u2019s a level at which memoir is so much easier because all you have to do is say what happened. And that\u2019s the counsel that I give to everybody who\u2019s writing a memoir: get out of the way and just say what happened. This is an account, and especially a book like this, it\u2019s like a forensic account. And that\u2019s the level of detail that I wanted to go into\u2014using all of my journals, and all of her journals, and the photos, and the drawings\u2014to bring it all together to really just as accurately as possible just say what happened. I remember giving Rayya that guidance when she was working on her own memoir. So in that whole awful, appalling middle section of the book, it was really just like, let\u2019s just say what happened. <\/p>\n

\"aCourtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Rayya on her 56th birthday in 2016, shortly before her cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n

And that was also the glory of Rayya. The thing that I loved about her more than anything was that I never met anybody who was less afraid of saying what happened and naming a truth than Rayya was. She would go right to the white, hot molten center of the truth as quickly as she could: \u201cThis is what I\u2019m seeing. This is what I\u2019m feeling. Let\u2019s talk about what\u2019s actually going on.\u201d So by the time I got to that scene, I already knew I couldn\u2019t tell this story honestly or fairly without saying how bad it got, and how crazy I got.
<\/p>\n

There\u2019s certainly any number of things for readers to connect with in your book, but since it\u2019s a memoir, it\u2019s not prescriptive. So I\u2019m curious what you hope readers will take away from it.<\/p>\n

Whatever they need, and whatever they want. That\u2019s a really simple way to see it, but that\u2019s a thing we say in 12-step recovery. We say, \u201cTake what you like and leave the rest,\u201d about the entire program. And I say that at the beginning of the book, \u201cIf there\u2019s anything in here for you, please help yourself to it, and if not, that is totally okay.\u201d I don\u2019t imagine that this book will be for everybody.
<\/p>\n

When you describe sex and love addiction, you mention that women are five times more likely to suffer from it. In part, you say perhaps this is because women spend their whole lives learning their value is tied to being chosen. We learn to get love, we have to give love, etc. I literally wrote in the margins as I was reading: \u201cAre all women love addicts???\u201d <\/p>\n

The only person in the world who I know absolutely for certain is a sex and love addict is me. And that\u2019s why the book is not prescriptive. Because, look, this is my diagnosis for sure. But the ways that people act out in sex and love, it\u2019s not quite as simple and clear as a heroin addiction, where it\u2019s like your brain is chemically addicted to this substance and if you stop using this substance, you\u2019ll get better. With process addictions, there\u2019s a lot of gray area, and there\u2019s a lot of question of degrees. So while I wouldn\u2019t feel comfortable saying that every woman in the world is a love addict\u2014I know some very avoidant women, too\u2014there\u2019s a question of intensity. And the degree to which they get swept up in romance. Getting carried away and becoming infatuated with somebody are stages of love that are probably pretty natural and normal. What I\u2019m talking about here with myself is this level-five hurricane version. So you take what might be seen as the normal behaviors, and then you multiply them by infinity, and you get somebody who acts the way that I act. <\/p>\n

\"karaoke\"Courtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Gilbert and Rayya doing karaoke.<\/p>\n

You spend some time in the book where it seems like you\u2019re trying to convince the reader that sex and love addiction is a \u201creal\u201d addition, as much as heroin or anything else. Do you hope your book helps people who suffer from it feel seen?<\/p>\n

Yeah. It would\u2019ve been nice 20 years ago if I had known all this, if I had heard somebody speak about this in a way that I saw myself in. I was just out there acting out like crazy. And it doesn\u2019t help that we all live in a culture that constantly reinforces that this is what you should be doing\u2014you should be partnering, you should be falling in love, this is in fact the highest purpose of your life, especially if you\u2019re a woman. If I had been acting out with drugs to the same insane degree that I was acting out with sexual romantic partners, multiple interventions would\u2019ve happened in my life.
<\/p>\n

You call Rayya the love of your life. I know we\u2019ll never know, but do you think if you two had had more time together, you could have gotten your relationship to a healthy place? <\/p>\n

We had a beautiful healthy relationship of friendship for so long. And then, we tipped into something that was deeply unhealthy. All of this is speculation, because we can\u2019t know. I can only know what happened; I can\u2019t know what might\u2019ve happened. And I want to preface this answer by saying that. For a mind like mine that can get very lost in fantasy, I have to be really careful about not spinning out too much into alternate lives. Like if I had done this, if they had done that, if I had said this, if we had\u2026I can get so lost in there; I can lose my actual life to speculative lives. And in many ways, I think sobriety of all kinds, emotional sobriety and sobriety from substances, is about making a committed decision to live in reality, to live in the day that you are in. What would have, could have, should have\u2026it is nothing but a giant question mark. <\/p>\n

\"twoCourtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Rayya and Gilbert, pictured during the time when Rayya was undergoing chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

But with that disclaimer duly disclaimed, I will say, the love that Rayya and I had for each other was quite sincere. And the dysfunction that we brought forth in each other was also quite real. So unless we had both fully committed to our own sobriety recovery programs, I can\u2019t see how anything could have worked. But that\u2019s a never-never land. Rayya had already demonstrated that she wasn\u2019t committed to going to any means necessary to protect her sobriety. And I wouldn\u2019t have even had the language at that point to know that I needed to fully commit to a program of sobriety and recovery in order to be healthy. <\/p>\n

I thought your description of addicts as vampires was compelling. Why is that metaphor helpful for people who are close to those struggling with addiction?<\/p>\n

The reality of having an active addict in your life is that they\u2019re heartbreaking. And the reason it\u2019s so heartbreaking is because, as Rayya pointed out to her friend whose brother was an addict, you are seeing this human being\u2014it brings tears to my eyes now just from having been in this\u2014who looks and sounds so much like this person who you love, but as she said, you don\u2019t have a brother anymore. What you have is a vampire. And the reason it\u2019s a helpful metaphor, is that there\u2019s a tremendous danger to letting a vampire in your house. Because a vampire doesn\u2019t have any conscience or moral center apart from getting the blood that they need to live. And if that\u2019s yours, they\u2019ll take it. <\/p>\n

Rayya spoke about this from a place of tremendous authority. As she said to me one time, \u201cUntil you\u2019ve stolen money from your dad\u2019s wallet while he was dying in the hospital to go buy crack, you don\u2019t know what it feels like to need to be forgiven, but you also don\u2019t know what an addict will do.\u201d And she used to say to these people, \u201cThis vampire doesn\u2019t care about you\u2014they may say those words, but they don\u2019t care about you. So you need to start caring about you.\u201d Somebody in the room has to be caring about you. If you\u2019re caring about the vampire, and the vampire is caring about the vampire, there\u2019s somebody in the room who nobody is taking care of. And so, that\u2019s why it\u2019s useful. It\u2019s like, who\u2019s got you?
<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something that I have found myself in a lot of places in my life. As a good codependent, I\u2019m going to care more about your physical, financial, mental, and emotional health than you do. I\u2019m going to make doctor\u2019s appointments for you that you won\u2019t make for yourself. I\u2019m going to prop you up even though you have not gotten the care that you need. I care more about your creative life than you do. I\u2019ve sacrificed my own creativity multiple times to help foster the creativity of somebody who I was in love with, who hadn\u2019t bothered to do that for themselves. So a real warning sign for me is: Am I up at night trying to save somebody who isn\u2019t making any effort to save themselves? And the answer is often yes. And that\u2019s one of the things that I do love about the language of recovery: Are you willing to go to any length to be free? And if somebody is not willing to go to any length for themselves to be free, why are you going to such extensive lengths to try to save them at your own tremendous expense? <\/p>\n

\"liz<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Riverhead Books<\/p>\n

I see that you\u2019re still shaving your head\u2014I assume weekly, like you say in the book. And you write that you\u2019re no longer getting Botox or fillers. You\u2019ve been doing this for years now. How does it feel to reject societal beauty norms?<\/p>\n

I have to be careful here too, because I don\u2019t want the way that I\u2019m living to be projected in any way as a condemnation of the way anybody else is living, especially for women, because it\u2019s so difficult to unthread yourself from the messaging, and from culture, and from family expectations, and from questions of desirability, and youth and beauty and gender and power. All this stuff is so thick and murky and difficult. So whatever anyone is doing, it\u2019s great. <\/p>\n

But again, I have to come back to my own experience. I was saying to somebody the other day, this is not a how-to book. If anything, it\u2019s a how-not-to book. I don\u2019t have answers for anyone, but I have a story to tell. And included in that story is my gradual awakening, as I was getting older, to feeling like I had offered myself as tribute on the altar of the beauty industry enough. I don\u2019t even want to calculate the number of hours that I have spent in some sort of salon setting getting my nails done, getting body hair waxed off of me, getting eyebrows, eyelashes, lips, and hair\u2014all of these things that I\u2019ve done, for years, at great cost. And I use the word cost really literally: physical cost, material cost, emotional cost, and time. <\/p>\n

So I sort of feel like, \u201cDear beauty industry, we\u2019re done.\u201d I\u2019m breaking up with you. You\u2019ve had my tens of thousands of dollars; you\u2019ve had my infinite tens of thousands of hours, and I just don\u2019t want to give any more of that to you. I am bored of it, and I don\u2019t really care, and I just want to be free. Everything I\u2019m doing in my life, I\u2019m doing so that I can be free. This is what freedom feels like for me. <\/p>\n

So on your book tour, you won\u2019t have to spend hours in hair and makeup. That will be nice. <\/p>\n

I assume when I go on TV, they\u2019ll probably do to me what they would do to a dude. They\u2019ll probably take a little shine off. But yeah, I\u2019ve always been fascinated by the idea of shaving my head. I think women with shaved heads are gorgeous; I think there\u2019s something kind of incredible about it. And part of what stopped me from doing it for so long was because I always had in my head that I\u2019m a public figure, so I can\u2019t. Now, it\u2019s quite the opposite. It\u2019s like, I\u2019m a public figure\u2014let\u2019s go out there and be a public figure who looks like this. I\u2019ve got some photos of myself back in the day on TV where I\u2019m looking like a real Fox News anchor. I\u2019ve got curled bright blonde hair and tons of makeup and a sheath dress and a bright jewel tone and high heels. I\u2019m presenting in this very super feminine way, but I just don\u2019t want to do it anymore. <\/p>\n

All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert<\/p>\n

\"<i>All<\/a>You write that the goal of recovery is not to end up in a healthy relationship with someone else\u2014it\u2019s to be in a healthy relationship with yourself. I\u2019m curious how that\u2019s been going? <\/p>\n

I\u2019m still working on my solo journey. It is difficult for me to convey how much energy I have poured into others in my life. It was like this hole in a boat that I was leaking my life force out of forever. I\u2019m just getting that back, and I\u2019m not in a hurry. Being in a relationship is not something that, at the moment, is interesting to me. As you read, I\u2019ve got a dating plan in place if that should ever happen. And I\u2019ve got a community in place, who hopefully will help safeguard me from my most self-destructive tendencies. But at the moment, it\u2019s difficult for me to figure out what the value add would be of having a romantic partner when my life is in bloom in a way that it has never been before. It\u2019s been a creative bloom. My friendships are richer than they\u2019ve ever been. My traveling world has opened up even bigger than it ever did. My spiritual life is just in this constant awakening state. Any day that I\u2019m not in a crisis is a miracle. And if I look back on my life, what has consistently brought crisis is romantic and sexual entanglement. And I\u2019m not very interested in chasing crisis right now. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a little drawing in the book that says, \u201cWhat would somebody who isn\u2019t addicted to drama do today?\u201d And I mean…so many things. If you\u2019re not addicted to drama, the world becomes a kind of buffet of possibilities. Who knew? Who knew? There are all these wonderful things. <\/p>\n

Did you get a dog? Because at the end of the book, you write that you thought you were ready. <\/p>\n

Yes, I did. Do you want to see her? <\/p>\n

Duh.<\/p>\n

Yo Pepita, come here. [Pulls Pepita into her lap.] She\u2019s the greatest thing that ever happened to me.<\/p>\n

\"aCourtesy of Gilbert<\/p>\n

Gilbert and Pepita.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s adorable. And I\u2019m sure it\u2019s a very healthy relationship.<\/p>\n

Yeah. You\u2019re allowed to be codependent with a dog, right? Because they are masters of the unconditional love. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s a rescue, and I told the woman that found her for me that I can\u2019t have a dog who has more mental illnesses than I do. So she\u2019s very stable. She\u2019s very emotionally secure, and we are each other\u2019s secure attachment. She\u2019s a little survivor. She was out there living on the streets of L.A. God knows what her story was, but now this is our story. <\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

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