Elizabeth Edwards on John’s affair: I threw up

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The memoir of Elizabeth Edwards, cancer survivor and wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, hits bookstores May 12. ‘Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities,’ is billed by publisher Broadway Books as ‘an unsentimental and ultimately inspirational meditation on the gifts we can find among life’s biggest challenges.’

One of those challenges was dealing with her husband’s admission of carrying on an affair. Elizabeth Edwards took the news hard; according to the New York Daily News, which has acquired an advance copy of the book, she writes:

‘I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up.’

The Daily News has more details from the book:

Hunter initially seduced Edwards using a worn come-on line, Elizabeth writes:

‘You are so hot,’ Hunter told him outside a swank New York hotel. The campaign ultimately paid Hunter $114,000 to produce a batch of short films on his candidacy.

She lashes out at Hunter, now 45, whose name she never actually uses in the book, as a parasitic groupie who invaded the Edwardses’ life.

Her own life may be tragic, she concludes, but Hunter’s is ‘pathetic.’

Even when Edwards confessed to his wife, he lied, claiming he had slipped up just once, Elizabeth writes. His original version of the story ‘left most of the truth out,’ she writes.

But despite their difficulties, Elizabeth and John have remained together, and she is comforted when, ‘I lie in bed, circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions, and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It matters.’

Edwards’ new book is a follow-up to her bestselling memoir ‘Saving Graces.’

-- Carolyn Kellogg