When Molly Brodack, a 39-year-old writer and university lecturer from Atlanta, took her own life on March 8, 2020, her husband Blake Butler was left shattered and bewildered.
The 44-year-old Butler, also a writer, told the New York Post how shocked he was that she had committed suicide.
They were seen as a perfect couple in local literary circles, but little did he know about the depths of his wife's misery.
In his new book, Molly, Butler uncovers the shocking truth: There were countless hidden secrets unknown to him about the woman he loved.
Their first meeting was far from ordinary. Brodack was actually under arrest at the time. They connected on Facebook when Butler was searching for fellow writers in Atlanta and became intrigued by Brodack, a beautiful poet residing in Augusta, Georgia.
He told that she called him from the back seat of a police car, but instead of tears, she laughed and said, "You won't believe what happened!" As it turned out, the car she had borrowed from her roommate was impounded due to an expired license.
Later that night, she showed Butler her recent MRI scan, revealing a past battle with a brain tumor. Butler saw her as a wild, untethered woman, and that was beautiful to him.
Brodack confided in Butler about her troubled upbringing - a father involved in bank robberies, her own shoplifting, and a mother grappling with bipolar disorder, leaving young Molly to fend for herself.
However, there were other dark secrets hiding beneath the surface. It was later unveiled that she had started using heroin at the tender age of 12, allowed her friends to burn her with cigarettes, and shockingly, she was already married when she met Butler, who was eager to care for her.
The couple tied the knot in an intimate ceremony on a mountaintop near their home in 2017, with only the bride, groom, and their mothers in attendance. Shortly after her death, Butler stumbled upon the truth that his wife had been involved with one of her students just weeks after their wedding.
Innocently searching through her cellphone for pictures to use in her funeral presentation, Butler was shocked to uncover evidence of multiple infidelities. He found lingerie photos, videos of her engaging in self-pleasure while mentioning other men's names, and emails with seductive photos sent to her students at different colleges where she taught.
Moreover, he discovered her correspondence with a poet who flew to Tucson specifically to engage in sexual activities with her during a writing retreat, which Butler had funded. She had even sent the man money, totaling around $1,500.
Butler admitted that he felt a strange sense of relief when he discovered her web of lies, saying that she had created a world of deceipt on her own.
He began writing "Molly" just a month after her tragic demise.
Ultimately, Butler concluded that Brodack likely had borderline personality disorder. He has since found love again and remarried in 2022. Together with his new wife, they now reside in Baltimore, marking a bittersweet ending to a profoundly tragic story.