Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong narrates appealingly, often with raw emotion that fits the harrowing losses she experienced last year—the death of a favorite cousin to cancer, a new boyfriend stricken with COVID, and an SNL friend succumbing to the virus. Her pacing and comedic timing make listening easy, even when compact stories and vignettes appear in rapid succession like comedy one-liners. Her New York City street smarts provide an interesting contrast to the richness of her emotional life and her connection with her cousin, Owen. Memories of her formative years and path to comedy fame are also fun to hear, but it’s her resilience and hope that are featured in this remarkable audio. Drawing on what she gained from Owen’s love and support, her touching reflections will continue inspiring long after this absorbing audio is finished. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir
Narrated by Cecily Strong
Cecily StrongUnabridged — 5 hours, 18 minutes
This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir
Narrated by Cecily Strong
Cecily StrongUnabridged — 5 hours, 18 minutes
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Overview
Cecily Strong had a special bond with her cousin Owen. And so she was devastated when, in early 2020, he passed away at age thirty from the brain cancer glioblastoma. Before Strong could attempt to process her grief, another tragedy struck: the coronavirus pandemic. Following a few harrowing weeks in the virus epicenter of New York City, Strong relocated to an isolated house in the woods upstate. Here, trying to make sense of Owen's death and the upended world, she spent much of the ensuing months writing. The result is This Will All Be Over Soon-a raw, unflinching memoir about loss, love, laughter, and hope.
Befitting the time-warped year of 2020, the diary-like approach deftly weaves together the present and the past. Strong chronicles the challenges of beginning a relationship during the pandemic and the fear when her new boyfriend contracts COVID. She describes the pain of losing her friend and longtime Saturday Night Live staff member Hal Willner to the virus. She reflects on formative events from her life, including how her high school expulsion led to her pursuing a career in theater and, years later, landing at SNL.
Yet the heart of the book is Owen. Strong offers a poignant account of her cousin's life, both before and after his diagnosis. Inspired by his unshakable positivity and the valuable lessons he taught her, she has written a book that-as indicated by its title-serves as a moving reminder: whatever challenges life might throw one's way, they will be over soon. And so will life. So make sure to appreciate every day and don't take a second of it for granted.
Editorial Reviews
05/24/2021
Saturday Night Live cast member Strong shows her serious side in this uneven if earnest memoir about the death of her cousin. Covering a year in diary-style entries, she begins in March 2020, two months after her cousin Owen died at age 30 of brain cancer. With SNL on hiatus due to the pandemic—and a new romance with someone who’d contracted Covid-19 on hold—she had time to reflect on her friendship with the funny, bird-obsessed Owen. Strong shares Owen’s text messages and glimpses of him facing cancer with courage and humor (“You know how everybody goes... on WebMD and panics and convinces themselves they have brain cancer? Well I’m the one who actually had brain cancer”), but he remains somewhat remote. Strong’s writing is more vivid when she explores her own life, notably her 1990s childhood with her troubled but bighearted brother (“I bit him hard once in the armpit”) and the high school expulsion that led her to find her “people” at the Chicago Academy for the Arts. While fans may be left wanting more of Strong’s personal story, her sincere tribute is nonetheless touching. Agents: Cindy Uh and Cait Hoyt, CAA. (Aug.)
A Summer 2021 Reading Recommendation from Good Morning America, USA Today, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, The A.V. Club and Hello Giggles
“Powerful” —Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today (Summer’s Hottest Books)
“Strong’s affecting memoir starts when her beloved cousin Owen dies of brain cancer in 2020 — just before the pandemic hits. After she moves to an isolated house upstate and begins keeping a diary, Strong finds Owen’s lessons about life bring her newfound strength.” —Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post (10 Books to Read in August)
“This Will All Be Over Soon is a touching meditation on life, loss, and love. Thank you for opening your heart to us, Cecily.” —Elizabeth Ann Entenman, Hello Giggles (Here Are the 10 Best New Books to Read in August)
“A devastatingly timely memoir.” —Rachel Epstein, Marie Claire
“[A] surprisingly fast-paced book that not only reads like a personal diary but is also universal enough in its description of the overwhelming anxiety of dealing with the unknown of a novel, world-changing virus to hit home for a massive amount of readers who have, in the past year and a half, suddenly experienced many of the same emotions. Strong may have originally written This Will All Be Over Soon for herself as a way to grieve and survive, but it ultimately works as a beacon of hope for a brighter future with the people we love. For that reason alone, it’s precisely the book we all need right now.”—Scott Neumyer, Shondaland
“Earlier this year, we discovered Cecily Strong has impeccable aim when she flung wine over her shoulder and repeatedly splashed Colin Jost on Saturday Night Live, all while singing Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as Jeanine Pirro. But with her new memoir, This Will All Be Over Soon, we learn that the Schmigadoon! star also has a gift for beautiful prose.”—Patrick Ryan, USA Today
"Almost more common now than the one-hour stand-up special is the comedian memoir. Or the collection of slight if witty essays or (more rarely) mildly satirical or oddball short stories. The nonfiction often traces the comedian’s path to comedy, when it was they first realized they could be funny for a living. Beyond professional obligation or a large advance, there’s little sense from the writer that they needed to write the book. That’s partly why Cecily Strong's new memoir feels so notable. This Will All Be Over Soon details the Saturday Night Live cast member’s grieving of her cousin Owen, who died in early 2020 at age 30 due to cancer. After Owen’s death, Strong left New York City—during the pandemic’s early surge—and wrote the book in an isolated cabin upstate; its diary-like passages reflect the immediacy of the emotions she conveys." —Laura Adamczyk and Saloni Gajjar, The A.V. Club
“Cecily Strong peels herself open, creates a reality where depression doesn’t have to be hidden. She has written us a permission slip to process our losses, slowly and fully. To respect pain and grief as life’s companions. To make peace with what’s been permanently changed. There’s still so much we don’t know, but here we are trying. Confronting an ocean’s worth of sadness, sip by sip.”—Chanel Miller, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Know My Name
“Whether we realize it or not, the ways we intersect with others define our interior lives. It is a gift to all of us that Cecily Strong chose to wonder out loud about the meaning of loss and the hard work of sustaining hope when your world and the world feel most tenuous.”—Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me More and The Middle Place and host of the podcast Kelly Corrigan Wonders
“Honest and heartfelt, Cecily Strong is telling the truth: we have lost too much. This tender book is a call to cherish the people who change us, and the experiences that fill our numbered days with absurdity and wonder.” —Kate Bowler, New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I’ve loved) and host of the podcast Everything Happens with Kate Bowler
“I really liked Cecily Strong before, from her work on SNL. But after reading This Will All Be Over Soon, I want to be president of her fan club. This is a brilliant book: funny, of course—but also poignant, lyrical, searing. Not only is it difficult to put it down; it's impossible to forget.”—Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Half a Life and The Queen of Tuesday
“With wit and heart and honesty and conversational approachability, this book is an intimate portrait of a very funny person’s very sad year. Her cousin Owen was a gift to this world, and so is this tribute to him. I laughed and cried, sometimes at the same time. This book is like splitting a bottle of wine and weeping with Cecily Strong, my dream scenario.” —Bess Kalb, bestselling author of Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story
“This Will All Be Over Soon is a radically intimate memoir of love and grief, its narrative stitched together from journal entries, personal anecdotes, even text messages. Cecily Strong’s comedic impulse comes through in her storytelling, but the heart of this book is her vulnerability and brave willingness to see her life clearly, to speak her own truth, and ‘to keep [her] grief as full of love as possible.’ As she writes, ‘the worst year of your life could turn out to be the best year of your life.’ That’s something we all need to hear right now.”—Maggie Smith, author of Goldenrod and the national bestseller Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Chang
“Reading Cecily Strong’s memoir is like sitting down to coffee with an old friend who has been to hell and back since you’ve last seen her and yet she can still make you smile through the pain. She welcomes us into her inner thoughts as she grapples with her cousin’s loss, her new paramour’s COVID plight, and her own anxiety and depression. By letting us into her mind, Cecily has given us a true gift. Access to beauty. Access to humor. Access to what it means to be human. This memoir in its self-aware storytelling format is just so perfect for this time, this period of uncertainty personally and globally, and how one warrior woman copes—or doesn’t. Like the rest of us.”—Zibby Owens, creator and host of the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books and editor of Moms Don't Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology
09/24/2021
Strong, a Saturday Night Live cast member known for spot-on impersonations of everyone from Melania Trump to Jeanine Pirro, delivers a raw, heartfelt account of her worst year. In mid-2020, after quarantining for two weeks in New York City at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Strong fled to an isolated house in the woods with two trusted friends. She describes grieving the recent loss of her beloved cousin from brain cancer, struggling to maintain a long-distance relationship with a man who contracted COVID-19 and seemed conflicted about her, and turning to writing as therapy. Facing her fear of the virus and the overwhelming sadness of losing loved ones was immensely difficult, Strong writes, but she attempted to find reasons to laugh and ways to connect with family and friends from a distance. Her reflections on past relationships, coupled with anecdotes about breaking into show business, make Strong's book relatable and provide a little comic relief to a deeply personal, heartbreaking story. VERDICT Readers need not be familiar with Strong's work to appreciate her story, as it reflects the grief that so many have recently experienced. A reassuring, inspiring memoir that will resonate with readers who, like Strong, are trying to make sense of the last year and a half.—Lisa Henry, Kirkwood P.L., MO
Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong narrates appealingly, often with raw emotion that fits the harrowing losses she experienced last year—the death of a favorite cousin to cancer, a new boyfriend stricken with COVID, and an SNL friend succumbing to the virus. Her pacing and comedic timing make listening easy, even when compact stories and vignettes appear in rapid succession like comedy one-liners. Her New York City street smarts provide an interesting contrast to the richness of her emotional life and her connection with her cousin, Owen. Memories of her formative years and path to comedy fame are also fun to hear, but it’s her resilience and hope that are featured in this remarkable audio. Drawing on what she gained from Owen’s love and support, her touching reflections will continue inspiring long after this absorbing audio is finished. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2021-06-16
Saturday Night Live cast member Strong shares her grief in the wake of her cousin’s death, both to liberate herself from the pain and to memorialize him.
The book is essentially the author’s journal from March 2020 (“I don’t know how to tell this story. I don’t quite know what the story is. Because I don’t know when it starts. Or how it ends”) to March 2021: “I don’t know what I’ve learned or what I know….Here’s a thing I know for sure: I had a cousin named Owen who had red hair as a little boy and he was a serious kid and he loved birds. He taught me about love during his life and he’s teaching me about love after.” Strong chronicles the months following Owen’s death from brain cancer at age 30 and provides glimpses of life during the pandemic. Her prose is sincere yet largely flavorless. Without establishing a narrative arc, the author offers little in the way of revelation, for herself or readers, delivering a collection of non sequiturs, text messages, banal confessions, and scattershot notes typed on her phone. Fans hoping for details about her experiences at SNL will be disappointed—and also surprised by the lack of humor. The author repeatedly describes herself and this work as messy, which is an apt assessment. “I seem to just keep talking (or writing in this case) and hoping someone gets a sense of me that way,” she writes. In recalling a failed romance, Strong is vague and circumspect: “I accepted a lot. I’m not proud. But I think the secrecy and shame is part of why you get stuck in really bad places. In an abusive relationship. So here are empty pages.” There follow 12 blank pages. Her affection for Owen, however, clearly comes through.
There’s no lack of emotion in Strong’s voice, but the delivery mostly falls flat.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172487071 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 08/10/2021 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
March 24, 2020 March 24, 2020
I don’t know how to tell this story.
I don’t quite know what the story is.
Because I don’t know when it starts. Or how it ends.
Maybe the story started with the awful day in January when I got the call I had imagined getting for almost two years but believed and hoped I’d never get.
“Owen has been given hours. His tumor didn’t shrink enough where they could start the new treatment Monday. They will make sure he’s in no pain, and he’s surrounded by Ed and Laurel and Leda and his girlfriend, Stacia, and Sasha, his best friend since childhood. Soon he will go into a coma and then he will pass away.”
I kept saying “No, no, no, no, no, no.”
I don’t know how long I sat frozen on my bed making these guttural wailing sounds. At some point I picked up my phone. I was in California. I was supposed to fly to Philadelphia the next day for a wedding. Owen was supposed to beat brain cancer.
That night, I took moments to glance at the clock on my phone, wondering, where in time and space was Owen? What part of his journey was he on at this particular moment? I suppose I have my own magical thinking that began in earnest this night, that Owen would somehow beat this, too. I didn’t know how. But if anyone could figure out how to beat time and space, it would be the smartest and most wonderful and bravest human I knew.
My little cousin Owen.
MAYBE THE STORY is a different story, and it starts at a Christmas party this past December with my friend Kevin. I’m a bit down, but we are having fun. At the very end of the night, I’ve had too many and my new agent comes over. I don’t know what we even talk about, but he insists, “Just come meet the guy over there with the mustache.”
The guy over there with the mustache is handsome. I almost say yes. But then I say no. I’m thirty-five. I’m very used to being single. The majority of my male friends are gay. The two men I’m with at the table are gay. I think it’s sad that everyone wants to set me up, like it’s sad to look at me or something. I’m doing great!
Okay, but I do like to smooch, and it’s Christmas, and I feel cute in my outfit, so I talk to the man with the mustache. He’s very cute. I have social anxiety, and I’m drunk and tired, so I have no idea what we talk about. He comes home with me. The next morning I’m a little more shy. He is less shy.
“Can I give you my number?” he asks.
I hand him the pink-flamingo pen my psychiatrist gave me that week. I find an old receipt, and he writes “Jack” and his phone number on the back. Now I have to text him first in order for him to have my number. I text him right after he leaves. I like him. Our timing isn’t great. We both live in New York, but I’m about to go to California for a month. He’s going to Cuba for two weeks. They don’t have great internet.
MAYBE THE STORY starts March 2018. My dad has started a new thing I love, where he sends me a text almost immediately after each SNL show: a little summary that is, of course, always complimentary of his “girlie.” This Saturday he doesn’t text me. That’s odd, but maybe he’s just asleep.
The next morning he texts and says to call him. His tone immediately scares me: “I have some bad news about Owen.”
Of all people, this is not who I expect. Owen is twenty-eight years old and in great shape, and what could be wrong with Owen?
“He was having migraines, and he took himself into the ER. He got an MRI, and they found a tumor.”
We cried together on the phone. Brain cancer is a death sentence, right?
I went to see my cousins, Owen and Leda, at my uncle Ed and aunt Laurel’s apartment. I had no idea what to expect. What’s it like after you find out you have brain cancer? I’m nervous on the way there. Owen’s had surgery to remove the tumor. Will he be bald? Will he look sick? I am holding back tears in the elevator.
I get to the door and Owen opens it, his normal towering, skinny, string-bean frame greeting me, arms wide open for a hug.
“Hey, cuz.”
I immediately feel okay. He’s smiling. I hug Ed next, who is less confident than Owen. Then Laurel, who is always Aunt Laurel—determined and on some task or another. She seems busy. This is the first time I see it as an armor. She’s going to make sure that we have snacks on the table and that everybody has water. She keeps the most beautiful home and always has—it’s a magical skill to someone like me. My idea of cleaning a house is calling the junk removal people and shrugging like, “Have at it.” Whenever I see someone subscribes to Martha Stewart Living I immediately know they come from a different monkey than I do.
Owen flops on a chair. Laurel is deaf in one ear, so he’s always been used to talking loudly. I’m not sure what to talk about, but Owen leads the way. Soon I’m laughing. I love this kid so much: “You know how everybody goes online and goes on WebMD and panics and convinces themselves they have brain cancer? Well I’m the one who actually had brain cancer.”
His doctors are great, he says. They’ve got a plan. He’s got a plan. His only problem is boredom.
I hug him goodbye. I think I needed it more than him. Owen has this quality of being the one who supports everyone around him, even while being the one who is undergoing vigorous treatments for glioblastoma.
Uncle Ed walks me outside. He’s visibly upset and nervous.
I say, “I think he’s going to be okay. I really do.”
And I really did.
MAYBE THE STORY starts Sunday, March 8, International Women’s Day, when Jack comes with me to watch the US women’s national soccer team play against Spain in the SheBelieves Cup.
He’s excited to be at this big arena in New Jersey, to watch women’s soccer with me. He gets choked up when he sees the number of little girls who get to have sports heroes, as it’s still rare even though they are the most badass team in the world. But I digress. Jack is loving the game. US wins. Duh. Jack says he thinks women’s sporting events might be his new thing. No loud, drunk guys.
We go out to eat and wait for traffic to die down before getting a Lyft home. As the restaurant starts to fill up, I wonder if this is a bad idea. The coronavirus is coming, isn’t it? Although, I wonder, what is that really? I am more nervous than most people, so I shrug it off.
That night, Jack does this thing he does where he grabs my hands when I’ve absentmindedly started picking at the skin behind my nail. It’s a thing I do. I pick at things in every way. It’s nerves, it’s anxiety. He notices.
He says, “I want you to feel like you can hold my hand instead.”
I don’t tell him, but it’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.
We talk that night. Like, the talk I haven’t had in six years. Are we dating? I like you. Let’s be dating.
At first I thought it was so difficult to meet someone right as I was losing someone I loved so much. I knew he’d have to be patient with me. He’d have to let me grieve. It would be easier not to even try during that process. But grieving for Owen was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and I promised Owen and myself to continue to let all that love be there along with the sadness. So when Jack leaves that night, after the talk, I say, “I think you were a gift to me from Owen.” And I like thinking of it that way.
Jack calls me that Friday morning and says, “I have a fever.” Jack’s got the coronavirus. What bad timing. So now you know how it could start.
NOW IT’S TIME I tell you (if you couldn’t already tell) I’m a bit lost. So here are some more parts of the story, in some order.
Owen tells me in August about a great new doctor he has, Dr. Henry Friedman. He’s the head of neuro-oncology at Duke. He’s leading the way in using polio therapy for GBM. That’s the acronym for Owen’s brain cancer. I’m learning the language of cancer now. Owen says Dr. Henry is the first doctor to bring up the word cure. I love this doctor. Owen starts polio treatments. I have no idea what that means or what it means for his body. In fact, I will never know what Owen experiences because he will never let on about the extent of his struggles. I’m not the only one. Doctors looking at his final MRI will say later that because of the size and position of his tumor, they didn’t know how he was standing and laughing and talking as long as he was.
I’M IN THE middle of my two-week quarantine in my tiny apartment in New York. I’ve cried every day. I’m scared about Jack. I’m really scared. He has had a bad fever for a week. He didn’t answer his phone yesterday. I text a doctor friend, who suggests a police welfare check. I end up not calling because I find Jack’s roommate on Instagram and he responds to my message. He says Jack is just sleeping, but he’s watching him just in case. This is how I meet Jack’s roommate for the first time.
I have had anxiety and depression since high school. I take Wellbutrin. I’ve gone to therapy for years. I take Xanax when needed. This is a really bad time for mental health. Today I decide the anxiety is worse. I’d rather be depressed. I get really low. I wake up Friday and I turn my phone on airplane mode and I start drinking. I think it’s going to fall apart with Jack now. I’m upset with him for not understanding why I constantly need to know he’s okay. I’m upset with myself for needing to constantly know he’s okay. I’m upset with friends talking about missing their fucking birthdays. What if Jack dies? What if I die? Owen just d—I can’t say it or write it. I’m so low and I’m so afraid. I’m afraid of the water coming out of my pipes. I’m afraid of outside. And I am so alone. I’ve never felt so alone. I ask Owen out loud to please help Jack. To help me. I immediately feel bad for asking. I just feel bad.
The next morning Leda texts me that she’s upstate. She says she’s heard a lot of birdsong, so we are in good hands. Thank you, Leda. Thank you, Owen. Perfect timing.
MAYBE IT STARTS on January 18, at Owen’s memorial service, when I spoke about the weird little red-haired boy I first met as a kid who came back into my life as an adult and taught me about family and what it is to feel that kind of love. I talked about his love for birds. The boy who loved birds flew away.
I send Jack the video of Owen’s beautiful service. He is still feeling sick, but his fever has finally broken after ten days or so. He tells me he went to high school with one of Owen’s friends, Nate. Nate from Antarctica!
“Nate’s coming from Antarctica. Can you believe it?” Laurel said as she went through letters and emails and flowers in a much quieter apartment, days after Owen had gone. We ate dinner, and I tried to make them laugh a little. I think Owen would want that. I know he would want that.
Jack’s roommate sends me a video after Jack’s chest X-ray and doctor visit. Jack is in a mask and gloves. He’s out of breath. He’s tired. He looks sick. He says the X-ray looks good. He coughs. Then, even though he’s out of breath and sick, he still says, “My doctor is such a great doctor.” I rewatch this video in my quarantine. It makes me laugh a little. It makes me cry. He’s really sick.
Leda told a story at Owen’s service. She had asked one of Owen’s doctors if he was scared when she told him they couldn’t do anything more for him, that he would have hours to live. I had this thought, too. But I knew he wouldn’t be scared. The doctor said that while most patients panic and try to bargain in this moment, which makes me really sad to hear, Owen didn’t. Instead he thanked her for trying her best. And for all she’d done for him.
SO I DON’T know what this story is. The world is upside down. I’m holding devastation and love in equal measures. What is bad timing when the timeline seems irrelevant? What’s the ending? Would you even know?
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