Description

Book Synopsis

''Striking, surprising, and technically excellent, the poems resonate way beyond their endings'' Roger Robinson

''Deft, daring, devastating and delightful'' Pádraig Ó Tuama

''Astonishing. These poems glimmer with a white-hot beauty that is hard won, and that sings'' Sarah Ruhl

Patient is a normal appearing woman in no obvious distress.

On an ordinary day, out with her three-year-old in the park, Amanda Quaid received a life-changing call - the back pain she had been living with for years was actually a rare and aggressive form of cancer. In an instant, life became a series of sterile rooms, medical charts and body-altering treatments which completely upend Amanda''s marriage, work and family life as she knows it.

Poetry became a lifeline for Amanda, a form to organize the chaos and pain of day-to-day life into order and beauty. In inventive and arresting poems that explore desire, marriage, motherhood and mortality, No Obvious Distress is a powerful memoir-in-verse about Amanda''s unique experience. But it is also a tender, witty and universal collection that asks how we can continue to live and love in times of uncertainty.

No Obvious Distress

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    A Paperback by Amanda Quaid

    £13.49

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    RRP £14.99 – you save £1.50 (10%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Tue 10 Nov 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher John Murray Press
      Published 7 March 2025
      ISBN-13 9781399824569
      978-1399824569
      ISBN-10 1399824562
      Also in:
      Memoirs

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      ''Striking, surprising, and technically excellent, the poems resonate way beyond their endings'' Roger Robinson

      ''Deft, daring, devastating and delightful'' Pádraig Ó Tuama

      ''Astonishing. These poems glimmer with a white-hot beauty that is hard won, and that sings'' Sarah Ruhl

      Patient is a normal appearing woman in no obvious distress.

      On an ordinary day, out with her three-year-old in the park, Amanda Quaid received a life-changing call - the back pain she had been living with for years was actually a rare and aggressive form of cancer. In an instant, life became a series of sterile rooms, medical charts and body-altering treatments which completely upend Amanda''s marriage, work and family life as she knows it.

      Poetry became a lifeline for Amanda, a form to organize the chaos and pain of day-to-day life into order and beauty. In inventive and arresting poems that explore desire, marriage, motherhood and mortality, No Obvious Distress is a powerful memoir-in-verse about Amanda''s unique experience. But it is also a tender, witty and universal collection that asks how we can continue to live and love in times of uncertainty.

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