Description
Book SynopsisWhen Joanne Jacobson's writing about her mother's respiratory illness was interrupted by her own diagnosis with a rare blood disorder, she found her perspective profoundly altered. Every Last Breath follows these two chronic illnesses as they grow unexpectedly intertwined. Rejecting a fixed, retrospective point of view and the forward-moving trajectory of conventional memoir, Jacobson brings the reader to the emotionally raw present - where potentially fatal illness and 'end of life' both remain, emphatically, life. As chronic illness blurs the distinction between illness and wellness, she discovers how a lifetime of relapse and remission can invite transformation. Written at the fluid, unsettling boundary between prose and poetry, these essays offer a narrative diagnosis of ongoing revision.
Trade Review“
Every Last Breath is a beautiful and brave exploration of the ephemerality of the body, the breath, and the world. It makes a valuable contribution to the literature of grief and the growing body of work that is focused on the intersection between body and belief.” —Jennifer Sinor, author of
Ordinary Trauma and
Letters Like the Day“
Every Last Breath is a book in which every last word illuminates the mutable, mortal body we singly inhabit and commonly share. It speaks deeply to the human experience of incremental time and ongoing, subtle, threshold-crossing change. It is impossible to overstate the beauty and intelligence that imbues Joanne Jacobson’s meditation on the ecstatic and perishable condition of our lives.” —William Merrill Decker, author of
Kodak Elegy: A Cold War Childhood“In this brilliant memoir, so gorgeously written, so richly intelligent, and so achingly heartfelt, Jacobson tells the stories of two illnesses, a mother’s and a daughter's, one of breath and one of blood. Jacobson plunges all the way down (to borrow from Emily Dickinson) to ‘Where the Meanings are.’ With its lyrical compression and unguarded honesty,
Every Last Breath is a knock-out.” —Richard McCann, author of
Mother of Sorrows“Both memoir and biography, this book tells the interrelated stories of two Jewish-American women, mother and daughter, as their failing bodies confront them with their mortality. Jacobson’s work is heart-wrenching without being maudlin. The respective illnesses are keenly observed. Family relationships are sweet and brutal. The body, the human body in its exquisite frailty, recurs as an object of reflection.” —Scott Abbott, author of
Immortal for Quite Some Time
