Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert reveals struggle during partner’s relapse in new memoir

Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love, is preparing for the release of her new memoir All the Way to the River, set to be published on September 9 by Penguin Random House. The book recounts her relationship with Rayya Elias and the challenges they faced following Elias’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent relapse into addiction.

Gilbert first revealed her relationship with Elias in 2017, shortly after leaving her husband. The pair had been longtime friends before entering a partnership, but their time together coincided with Elias’s battle against a terminal illness.

Doctors initially gave Elias six months to live, and while their story was seen by many as one of resilience, Gilbert’s memoir details a more difficult reality.

In the book, Gilbert recalls that Elias, who had previously battled heroin addiction, turned to opioids following her diagnosis in search of pain relief.

“Let the dragon roll one more time,” Elias reportedly said before taking morphine, which Gilbert describes as instantly easing her suffering. Over time, Elias’s use expanded to other substances, including cocaine, marijuana, alcohol and fentanyl.

According to Gilbert, the addiction transformed Elias’s behaviour, making her paranoid and at times abusive. Gilbert explains how the situation left her self-medicating and fearful in her own home.

At one point, she considered a desperate act. Gilbert describes taking both morphine and sleeping pills to a park, contemplating how to disguise one as the other to end her partner’s suffering. However, Elias sensed something was wrong, confronting Gilbert and ultimately preventing her from going through with the plan.

Reflecting on that moment, Gilbert told The New York Times, “I’m the nice lady who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and I’m out in the park with fentanyl and morphine and sleeping pills trying to craft a murder.”

All the Way to the River offers a candid account of love, illness and addiction, and how Gilbert turned to writing as a way forward.