This Is Not a Pity Memoir
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
What happens when your partner of twenty years suddenly believes you’re nothing but a stranger?
What do you do when your history together is gone?
How do you prove you’re not an imposter in your own life?
When the partner of Emmy Award–winning screenwriter Abi Morgan abruptly collapsed from a mysterious illness, doctors were concerned that he would not survive. Then, six months later, Jacob woke from his coma, to the delight and relief of his family and friends—except this proved to be anything but a Hollywood ending. Because to Jacob, the woman standing at his bedside, who had cared for him all these months, was not his partner. Not his children’s mother. Not the woman he loved. Sure, she looked like his Abi, but this was an imposter, living someone else’s life.
Finding herself dropped into a real-life night-mare seemingly ripped from the pages of a thriller, Abi must find a way to hang on to not only their past but also their future together, before it slips away from them both. With grace, an irresistible sense of humor and refreshingly raw honesty, This Is Not a Pity Memoir grapples with a journey through fear and redemption few should have to face.
What do you do when you are losing your love?
You don’t write a pity memoir.
You write a love story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this raw and incandescent debut, screenwriter Morgan reflects on the emotional turmoil and growth of rebuilding a life with her partner after he was diagnosed with Capgras syndrome, a rare psychological illness that made him believe she was an imposter. When a seizure led her partner of 20 years, Jacob, to be put into a medically induced coma for six months, Morgan was informed that his "brain does not look like yours... anymore." Upon waking up, he slowly remembered their children and family, but not Morgan. With brutal and hypnotic prose, Morgan oscillates between the grueling processes of regaining Jacob's trust upon his return home ("One day I suggest he quiz me... I get every answer right") and providing him round-the-clock care while isolating due to the Covid-19 pandemic; the beginning of their relationship, when their passion was immediate and intense; and her own harrowing struggle with stage 3 breast cancer. "What no one tells you about proper unfolding tragedy is that it is scary, and adrenalizing," she writes. "But mainly it is boring." Delving into her "mawkish... relationship with mishap" and desperation to preserve the ephemeral, Morgan surfaces with a profound look at the complexities of love, even at its most mundane. Equal parts savage and sublime, this obliterates notions of memory and intimacy with grace and precision.
