This is Not a Pity Memoir
The heartbreaking and life-affirming bestseller from the writer of The Split
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4.6 • 19 Ratings
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
Both very funny and as propulsive as a thriller . . . impossible to put down' RACHEL COOKE, Observer
'The kind of book you will find yourself saying urgently, over and over, to friends: 'Have you read it?' CAITLIN MORAN
'Gripping, funny and always honest' DAVID NICHOLLS
'Extraordinary . . . utterly compelling and so honestly told' NIGELLA LAWSON
'Truly breathtaking. I could not have loved it more' CAREY MULLIGAN
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An ordinary day.
The end of ordinary life.
One morning in June, Abi had her to-do list - drop the kids to school, get coffee and go to work. Jacob had a bad headache so she added 'pick up steroids'. She returned home and found the man she loved and fought and laughed with for twenty years lying on the bathroom floor.
And nothing would ever be the same again.
But this is not a pity memoir. It's about meeting your person. And crazed late night Google trawls. It's about the things you wished you'd said to the person that matters then wildly over-sharing with the barista who doesn't know you at all. It's about sushi and the wrong shoes and the moments you want to shout 'cut'. It's about the silence when you are lost in space and the importance of family and parties and noise.
It's the difference between surviving and living.
It's a reminder that, even in the worst times, there is light ahead.
It's 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.
Customer Reviews
A masterpiece from the heart
Funny, devastating, feverish, haunting, I couldn’t put it down. I wept almost the whole way through.