“Tara Kelly’s No Last Words is a luminous, thoughtful and penetrating story of a marriage, a love, a family and a death, told with a wonderful eye for detail, sharp, but never unsympathetic, and refreshingly free from sentimentality and the temptation to settle old scores that often spoil this kind of book for the reader.”  

— Michael Korda, Passing and Alone

“This thrilling book about 19th century American Aristocracy in the 21st century, uses the glittering details—the wooden boats, the Italian cars, the big shingle house on the coast of Maine, the townhouse in Brooklyn —to paint the portrait of a modern marriage. The story begins in  glamour, soars through disappointment and ends in love. No Last Words will enchant you.”

– Susan Cheever, Home Before Dark and Drinking in America: Our Secret History

An excavation of marriage, addiction, and ultimately self, Kelly’s No Last Words reminds us there are no easy answers, that life is complicated, but we can be kind; love may disappoint, retreat, mellow and shift, but it is also what buoys us on the journey to our final breath. Engaging, clear-eyed, honest, never sentimental, this memoir is not to be missed.” 

– Joanne Proulx, We All Love the Beautiful Girls

The day before Robert died was an otherwise perfect June day in Connecticut: warm but not hot, with a bit of a breeze, flawless blue sky, puffy white clouds—the sort of weather a sailor loves, and Robert was a sailor. 

So begins Kelly’s moving memoir of her life with Robert Willis, her husband, father of their children, restauranteur, sailor, bon vivant, and alcoholic. From an enchanted start in Manhattan to a townhouse in Brooklyn, from an island in Maine and back to rural Connecticut, in fast cars and sleek boats, Tara and Robert seemed to live a charmed life. But beneath the glittering exterior was the struggle of money, alcohol, and ultimately self-control and hard-won sobriety. When this couple seems to have reached an impasse, separation brings renewed love, and then tragedy brings new challenges. 

Kelly’s memoir is a clear-eyed excavation of the lives lived together and apart by two charismatic modern Americans, a story told in love and compassion for herself and others, a story readers will savor and remember.