You can use your SAILS Library Network card to borrow titles from these partner libraries:
2 of 2 copies available
—Ann Patchett
An extraordinary memoir—told entirely in near-death experiences—from one of Britain's best-selling novelists, for fans of Wild, When Breath Becomes Air, and The Year of Magical Thinking.
We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death.
I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter—for whom this book was written—from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.
Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
February 6, 2018 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780525588818
- File size: 170225 KB
- Duration: 05:54:38
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
How appropriate that this audiobook memoir, an unlikely examination of life through brushes with death, is narrated by the talented Daisy Donovan. Her tone of voice exudes a veneer of vulnerability overlaying a steely strength, and her delivery is ideal for this collection of interconnected remembrances. Each new chapter title names the relevant body parts involved as the author examines yet another life-altering event. Donovan's pacing and appealing accent make the vignettes come alive for the listener. The wisely placed and haunting first chapter, "Neck," opens the door on O'Farrell's gripping world, which encourages listeners to more closely examine their own. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine -
August 1, 2018
Cats may have nine lives, but O'Farrell, who won the Costa Book Award for The Hand That First Held Mine, has had 17, as revealed in this stupendous collection of essays named for various body parts that have caused her near demise. Her aural stand-in, British actor Daisy Donovan, is temperamentally well matched, never acknowledging any hints of self-pity or despair. Donovan's steady tone embodies O'Farrell's remarkable strength recalling illnesses, violence, and accidents. At three, O'Farrell narrowly escaped decapitation-by-car-boot (trunk) and full-body flattening by auto two years later. Two near-drownings took her breath away. Remarkably, her experiences left her unafraid of death: "I viewed my continuing life as an extra, a bonus, a boon; I could do with it what I wanted"--until she became a parent. The final chapter, about a daughter made fragile with life-threatening allergies, is perhaps the collection's most affecting, in which keeping her child alive "one more day" becomes a daily miracle. VERDICT Immediate, irreverent, riveting, O'Farrell's mortal escapes emerge as illuminating, inspiring affirmation of everyday life. ["A heartfelt meditation on the fragility and wonder of life": LJ 3/1/18 starred review of the Knopf hc.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
November 13, 2017
British author O’Farrell (This Must Be the Place) has woven together a stunning collection of vignettes about near-death experiences in her life. She begins with a chilling tale of encountering a lone stranger during a hike up a mountain, who she later learns, after talking with the police, is a killer. Each story strikes a different tone, from the somber to the comedic. In “Lungs” she tells of taking a perilous dive off a cliff into the sea and nearly drowning when she was a teen desperate for adventure in a small Scottish seaside town in the late 1980s. Regarding these encounters with death, she writes, “They will take up residence inside you and become part of who you are, like a heart stent or a pin that holds together a broken bone.” Her most dramatic examination of the precipice between life and death is when she writes about her children. In a story that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, she tells of her daughter’s diagnosis with an immunological disorder, which left O’Farrell contemplating life’s fragility. O’Farrell’s recollections of her brushes with death are fascinating and thought-provoking.
-