Until The Wheels Fall Off
A Powerful Journey of Loss, Resilience, and Self-Discovery
Until the Wheels Fall Off is a raw memoir chronicling a widower’s grief following the death of his partner of twenty-nine years.
Gary Stephens Jr.’s touching memoir Until the Wheels Fall Off imparts the intensity of his grief for his departed wife.
Stephens and Maleka grew from friends to partners to spouses, looking forward to a bright future together. Instead, Maleka’s health deteriorated, and Stephens spent years supporting her until her death from cancer. Soon after, his mother-in-law also died, leaving a deafening silence in the house the three had shared. More losses followed, forcing Stephens to seek gratitude and purpose in the face of his grief.
To establish the book’s emotional stakes, a detailed history of Maleka’s twenty-nine-year relationship with Stephens is included alongside his accounts of her death and his grief. This includes a thorough reconstruction of Maleka’s personality: “She carried herself with confidence, and her smile was captivating,” but she was also “quiet and reserved, someone who needed time to warm up.” His adoring chronicle of their nine years of dating and their subsequent marriage is colored by his somber reflections as a grieving spouse; meanwhile, reconstructed conversations with others also mourning Maleka result in a broader sense of her distinctive community.
The book also emphasizes Stephens’s joy at having loved and been loved by his wife, noting “Some even said our story reminded them of the movie The Notebook” and “I wonder if I was placed in Maleka’s life as a vessel—to help her navigate her life’s challenges with the highest level of love and care.” It records a posthumous birthday party held for Maleka, as well as the foundation that Stephens started in her name. It also expresses his continual determination to lead a good, useful life after her loss: “Grief didn’t just change me; it revealed me.”
Stephens’s thoughts on love and the grieving process are pronounced throughout, evoking sympathy: “Many people want to experience true love, but I often wonder if they’re willing to endure what comes with it.” However, the book’s memories are quite intimate at times, and some memories hold the audience at a distance, as with a belabored discussion of the pronunciation of Maleka’s name. Further, the prose throughout is matter-of-fact and unadorned; it involves some clichés, as with “Even now, the memory brings tears to my eyes.” And while the book is focused in terms of its themes, its progression is nonlinear: It alternates between the period before Maleka’s death and Stephens’s experiences after. Its jumps between the past and present tense are sometimes distracting, though its sense that love is a matter of continual commitment is an effective throughline.
A moving widower’s memoir, Until the Wheels Fall Off is about love, loss, and ongoing commitment.
Reviewed by
Carolina Ciucci
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
