| At twenty-one, just starting to comprehend the puzzle of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with a wildly unpredictable and rare autoimmune disease. It appeared suddenly and tore through her twenties, vanishing and then returning, paralysing her for weeks at a time, programming her first to expect nothing from life and then, furiously, to expect everything. In this captivating story, Manguso recalls her nine-year struggle: arduous blood cleansings, collapsed veins, multiple chest catheters, depression, the deaths of friends and strangers, addiction, and the trite metaphors that accompany prolonged illness. A book of tremendous grace and humour, The Two Kinds of Decay transcends the very notion of what an account of illness can and should be. |
