Hey, it's Rachel Martin. I'm the host of Wildcard from NPR. For a lot of my years as a radio host, silence sort of made me nervous. That pause before an answer, because you don't know what's going on on the other side of the mic. But these days, I love it.

Oh, gosh. Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Think. Listen to the Wildcard podcast only from NPR.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bolzai. I'm Jesse Thorne. I want to give you a quick heads up that this next conversation

on our show dives into some very intense topics, including addiction, cancer, sex, suicide, death,

and violence. So if you or someone you're listening with might be sensitive to that, we wanted to let you know.

Our conversation is with Elizabeth Gilbert.

And if you know Elizabeth Gilbert's name, it might be for her 2006 book, Eat, Pray, Love,

a memoir about self-discovery and finding love that was later made into a movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem.

Earlier this month, Gilbert published her third memoir, all the way to the river,

Love, Loss, and Liberation.

In it, Gilbert recounts the decline, death, and addiction, experienced by her late partner,

writer Raya Elias.

Gilbert and Elias started dating in 2016.

They became partners the next year.

During that time, Elias was diagnosed with cancer.

Doctors gave her a grim prognosis, six months at best.

So Elias, a recovering addict, figured she had nothing to lose.

She dove headfirst back into using hard drugs.

What's the big deal if it's another six months? Then six months came and went.

Elias hadn't passed. Then another six months, then another. Elias survived for a year and a half

after her diagnosis. For Gilbert, those 18 months were some of the rockiest of

...