The Forgiveness Tour: How To Find the Perfect Apology

by Susan Shapiro

Overview

"Essential reading."—Publishers Weekly

"Enlightening and universally relevant."—Kirkus

“To err is human; to forgive divine.” But what if the person who hurt you most refuses to apologize or express any regret?

That’s the question haunting Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro when her trusted advisor of fifteen years repeatedly lies to her. Stunned by the betrayal, she can barely eat or sleep. She’s always seen herself as big-hearted and benevolent, someone who will forgive anyone anything —as long as they’re remorseful. Yet the addiction specialist who helped her quit smoking, drinking, and drugs after decades of self-destruction won’t explain—or stop—his ongoing deceit, leaving her blindsided. Her crisis management strategy is becoming her crisis.

To protect her sanity and sobriety, Shapiro ends their relationship and vows they’ll never speak again. Yet ghosting him doesn’t end her distress. She has screaming arguments with him in her mind, relives their fallout in panicked nightmares and even lights a candle, chanting a secret Yiddish curse to exact revenge.

In her entrancing, heartfelt new memoir The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology, Shapiro wrestles with how to exonerate someone who can’t cough up a measly “my bad” or mumble “mea culpa.” Seeking wisdom, she explores the billion-dollar forgiveness industry touting the personal benefits of absolution, where the only choice on every channel is: radical forgiveness. She fears it’s all bullshit. 

Desperate for enlightenment, she surveys her old rabbis, as well as religious leaders from every denomination. Unable to reconcile all  the confusing abstractions, she embarks on a cross country journey where she interviews people who suffered unforgivable wrongs that were never atoned: victims of genocides, sexual assault, infidelity, cruelty and racism. A Holocaust survivor in D.C. admits he’s thrived from spite. A Michigan man meets with the drunk driver who killed his wife and children. A daughter in Seattle grapples with her mother—who stayed married to the father who raped her. Knowing their estrangement isn’t her fault, a Florida mom spends eight years apologizing to her son anyway—with surprising results. Does love mean forever having to say you’re sorry?

Critics praised Shapiro’s previous memoir Lighting Up: How I Stopped Smoking, Drinking and Everything Else I Loved in Life Except Sex as fiercely honest, fascinating, funny and “a mind-bendingly good read.” Now the bestselling author and popular writing professor returns with a darker, wiser follow-up, addressing the universal enigma of blind forgiving.
  
Shapiro’s brilliant new gurus sooth her broken psyche and answer her burning mystery: How can you forgive someone without an apology?  Does she? Should you? 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510781641
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	07/23/2024
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Susan Shapiro, an award-winning writing professor, freelances for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Salon, Tablet, The Forward, Elle, Marie Claire, Oprah, Wired, and The New Yorker online. She's the national bestselling author/coauthor of 13 books her family hates, including Unhooked, Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Lighting Up, The Bosnia List and The Byline Bible. She and her scriptwriter husband, a New York University professor, live in Greenwich Village, where she teaches her popular "instant gratification takes too long" classes at The New School, NYU, Columbia University, and privately online. Follow her on Twitter @susanshapironet and Instagram @Profsue123. 

Table of Contents

Note to the Reader ix

Chapter 1 A Betrayal Exposed 1

Chapter 2 When an Apology Is Called For 7

Chapter 3 The Forgiveness Industry 17

Chapter 4 When Your Own Country Exiles You 25

Chapter 5 When All Authority Figures Fail You 38

Chapter 6 When the Love of Your Life Betrays You 49

Chapter 7 When Your Whole Continent Betrays You 62

Chapter 8 Craving an Impossible Apology 74

Chapter 9 Depending on Someone Who Won't Apologize 89

Chapter 10 When Addiction Ruins Your Family 102

Chapter 11 Forgiving the Unforgivable 114

Chapter 12 When Love Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry 129

Chapter 13 Craving an Apology for Someone Else 141

Chapter 14 Shown No Remorse, Can You Heal Yourself? 155

Chapter 15 Forgiving a Critical Relative You Can't Leave 167

Chapter 16 When Tragedy Offers a Second Chance 180

Chapter 17 Giving the Apology You Want to Get 189

Chapter 18 What You Can't See Can Blind You 195

Chapter 19 Why You Should Lead the Least Secretive Life 207

Chapter 20 Seeing the Other Side 215

Chapter 21 Full-circle Forgiveness 223

Postscript: Healing Heart Problems 226

Appendix: Ways to Find the Perfect Apology 230

Books I Read While Writing the Forgiveness Tour 233

Acknowledgments 235

About The Author 238

Author's Note: Some names, dates, timelines, settings, and personal characteristics have been changed for literary cohesion and to protect privacy. In several cases, I went back to further interview subjects and added source material to elucidate the story.

Short excerpts of this work have appeared, in slightly different form, in The New York Times, Longreads, Salon, The Independent, Tablet, and The Revealer.

Dedication: To my father, Jack Shapiro

Editorial Reviews

"Enlightening and universally relevant, the book shows us how to forgive even when it might be impossible to forget." 
–Kirkus 

"Susan Shapiro mixes memoir, religion, psychology and journalism to tell amazing stories of forgiveness. The tales, ranging from uplifting to unsettling, are always riveting.”
–A.J. Jacobs, bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically and It’s All Relative
 
“As a popular chronicler of bad habits and poor life decisions, Shapiro has found her best topic yet: how to confront the pain in your life caused by someone you believe owes you an apology. The Forgiveness Tour’s wide-ranging tales of true heartache and gripping confrontation show readers how to find what they need to finally heal from what has been hurting them. Smart, witty and inspirational.”
–Tom Reiss, Pulitzer Prize winning author of TheBlackCount
 
“A dazzling and deeply moving memoir about forgiveness, featuring dueling rabbis, Jewish guilt, and the wisdom of inspirational men and women from different religions and cultures.”
–Judy Batalion, author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos
 
“Whether you’re wrestling with love gone bad, the rupture of a friendship, a conflict at work or betrayal on a global scale, you’ll find wisdom and solace in Susan Shapiro’s entertaining and insightful account of her own search for forgiveness.”
–Julie Metz, bestselling author of Perfection:A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal and EvaandEve
 
“The Forgiveness Tour takes us on journeys to right unforgivable wrongs. Shapiro illuminates how we can heal from those who harmed us most. Powerful, intimate and profound.”
–Gabrielle Selz, author of Unstill Life: A Daughter’s Memoir of Art and Love in the Age of Abstraction
 
“Shapiro demonstrates an uncanny knack for articulating and resolving the unspoken regret of so many people. A fascinating and essential work you’ll be better for reading.”
–Laurence Bergreen, author of Casanova: The World of a Seductive Genius
 
“Fascinating and original!”
–Susan Cheever, bestselling author of Home Before Dark and Drinking in America
 
"Shapiro holds my eye and ear with urgency, compelling dialogue, and fresh insights into human behavior. I found The Forgiveness Tour hard to put down.”
–Grace Schulman, author of Strange Paradise and Without a Claim
 
 “A timely and captivating memoir about grudges, fallibility, and the loneliest phrase in the English language: I’m sorry."
—David Goodwillie, author of King’s County

 

"I read everything Susan Shapiro writes. The Forgiveness Tour is electric, sad, funny and beautiful." 
—Cat Marnell, bestselling author of How To Murder Your Life 

From Publisher's Weekly, January 2021
 The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology Susan Shapiro. Skyhorse, $22.99 (264p) ISBN 978-1-510-76271-8

Journalist Shapiro (Lighting Up) chronicles her search for ways to heal after a devastating betrayal in this magnificent work. Her previous memoir recounted her successful therapy with addiction specialist Daniel Winters. Here, she wrestles with the revelation that their 15-year therapeutic relationship was founded on lies, when she finds out he’s been treating someone she’d asked him not to see. Winters’s refusal to explain or show remorse infuriated her and led her to set out on a quest to determine how to forgive someone who won’t apologize. Shapiro interviews colleagues, students, and religious leaders to probe universal questions around hurt, absolution, and contrition. Analyzing Jesus’s plea, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” a Presbyterian minister posits that “forgiving can get you out of pain.” A colleague tells her, “Jewish law requires a person to ask heartfelt forgiveness three times,” and that “if the injured party won’t respond...the non-forgiver has to seek forgiveness for not forgiving.” A Hindu guru, meanwhile, warns that an “angry grudge... burns your own heart first.” Their wisdom moves her to realize “how small my saga was” and to forgive Winters (who apologized first). By blending these stories with her own experiences and writing with insight, humor, and grace, Shapiro’s elegant survey becomes one largely about plumbing the boundless depths of the human heart. This is essential reading. (Jan.)
 
 

From the Publisher

★ 04/26/2021

Journalist Shapiro (Lighting Up) chronicles her search for ways to heal after a devastating betrayal in this magnificent work. Her previous memoir recounted her successful therapy with addiction specialist Daniel Winters. Here, she wrestles with the revelation that their 15-year therapeutic relationship was founded on lies, when she finds out he’s been treating someone she’d asked him not to see. Winters’s refusal to explain or show remorse infuriated her and led her to set out on a quest to determine how to forgive someone who won’t apologize. Shapiro interviews colleagues, students, and religious leaders to probe universal questions around hurt, absolution, and contrition. Analyzing Jesus’s plea, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” a Presbyterian minister posits that “forgiving can get you out of pain.” A colleague tells her, “Jewish law requires a person to ask heartfelt forgiveness three times,” and that “if the injured party won’t respond...the non-forgiver has to seek forgiveness for not forgiving.” A Hindu guru, meanwhile, warns that an “angry grudge... burns your own heart first.” Their wisdom moves her to realize “how small my saga was” and to forgive Winters (who apologized first). By blending these stories with her own experiences and writing with insight, humor, and grace, Shapiro’s elegant survey becomes one largely about plumbing the boundless depths of the human heart. This is essential reading. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

02/12/2021

Can we forgive without getting an apology from the offender? In this latest from journalist, teacher, and writer Shapiro (The Byline Bible), she recounts being deeply hurt by a mentor, who didn't apologize, and how that affected her life and left her longing for a resolution. In her quest to recover from her feelings of betrayal and devastation, over the next few years, Shapiro asked her friends, her rabbi, and various other religious leaders whom they deserved an apology from and why. She recounts the stories of those who found a way to forgive even in the most horrifying circumstances, including war atrocities, abuse, and abandonment, each with more at stake than Shapiro. She asks them two questions: "What would you want your offender to say to you?" and "What would it take to make it right?" What flows from these interviews is a book full of fascinating stories of brutal honesty and human resilience. VERDICT Readers will find hope and examples of paths toward forgiveness here. Casting a wide net, Shapiro's book will appeal to those who love human interest stories, people seeking to forgive in their own lives, and those wondering about the deeper meaning of forgiveness in many different traditions.— Holly Hebert, Middle Tennessee State Univ., Murfreesboro

Library Journal

2020-12-10
A personal and professional odyssey through the nuances of apologies.

When Manhattan journalist and writing professor Shapiro experienced betrayals from a trusted psychotherapist as well as a close female friend, she demanded answers. Devoid of atonement or any type of explanation for their behavior, both were nonchalant and arrogant, which understandably infuriated and flummoxed the author. Though Shapiro was traumatized, she was also inspired to question how others managed unresolved pain. Sharing revealing episodes of personal soul-searching, the author probes the lucrative “Forgiveness Industry,” fronted by gurus touting charities, books, and documentaries as well as agencies who grant professional amnesty to affronted clients on another’s behalf. Shapiro, who teaches at the New School, NYU, and Columbia, journalistically explores themes of forgiveness through a series of stories from a variety of sources, including family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and students—e.g., a 40-something Army wife and a trans man who faced ugly post-transition prejudice. All of these anecdotes demonstrate how certain personalities can easily pardon someone’s wrongdoing while others, as in her situation, experience spitefulness and difficulty moving on with their lives. Shapiro’s analysis is multifaceted, encompassing radically divergent opinions: religious leaders who consider clemency an emotional balm and pious obligation or a “wildly provocative Jungian astrologer” who touts grudge-holding as a protective barrier against perpetual victimhood. The author brings the same blend of wry humor, sharp wit, and knowledgeable authority that she demonstrated in some of her previous memoirs (Unhooked, Lighting Up, Five Men Who Broke My Heart), offering an intimate exploration of grudges, expectations, and remorse. Ultimately, she confesses to a series of personal atonements of her own and provides an appendix of practical solutions, leaving the decision up to readers whether personal apologies are required for true healing or whether unspoken atonement could suffice.

Enlightening and universally relevant, the book shows us how to forgive even when it might be impossible to forget.

Kirkus Reviews