Chosen for the Zoe Ball Book Club
Longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2018
'(An) extraordinary memoir... uncomfortable and compelling... fluent,poised,packed with colourful details'- Observer
I Am,I Am,I Am is Sunday Times bestseller and Costa Novel-Award winner Maggie O'Farrell's electric and shocking memoir of the near death experiences that have punctuated her life.
When Maggie O'Farrell's daughter was diagnosed with a severe immunology disorder,she found herself writing stories to make sense of how closely with live alongside the possibility of death and the reality of pain. She began to look back at her own life,her own near-fatal illness as a child and the moments through her life where she was forced to look her own mortality in the face.
A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital.
This is a memoir with a difference: seventeen encounters with Maggie at different ages,in different locations,reveal to us a whole life in a series of tense,visceral snapshots.
It is a book to make you question yourself: what would you do if your life was in danger How would you react And what would you stand to lose
I Am,I Am,I Am is a book you will finish newly conscious of your own vulnerability,and determined to make every heartbeat count.
A heartfelt and tenaciously powerful condensation of what it means to be alive,this book will appeal to readers of Cheryl Strayed's Wild or Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.
Publisher: Headline Publishing GroupISBN: 9781472240767Number of pages: 304Weight: 220 gDimensions: 196 x 128 x 20 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'What O'Farrell crafts from her relationship with mortality is special indeed. A powerful memoir.'- The Times
'If you want evidence that life can be just as dramatic as fiction,you couldn't wish for better than Maggie O'Farrell's stunning memoir.'- Louise Doughty, Guardian Books of the Year
'Maggie O'Farrell is a highly accomplished author with seven novels to her name but she achieves something altogether more powerful and direct in this astonishing memoir... Each chapter is an accomplished piece of memoir writing in its own right. The cumulative effect is extraordinary and I felt my understanding of what it means to be a human and a mother grew. Where other writers may be playing with paper,O'Farrell takes up a bow and arrow and aims right at the human heart.'- Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Times
'She is a breathtakingly good writer,and brings all her elegance and poise as a novelist to the story of her own life'- Guardian
'Leaves the reader feeling breathless,grateful and fully alive. Maggie O'Farrell is a miracle in every sense. I will never forget this book'- Ann Patchett
'(An) extraordinary memoir... uncomfortable and compelling... fluent,poised,packed with colourful details'- Observer
'A mesmerising read'- The Sunday Times
'It's a prayer for perspective that reminds readers to see every dodged bullet as the gift of new life and a reminder not to sweat the small stuff'- Daily Mail
'A profoundly affecting,powerful and life-affirming book. If you only read one memoir this year,make it O'Farrell's'- Sunday Express
'O'Farrell has a compelling and arresting writing style that fills in a scene quickly and engagingly,to great dramatic and narrative effect'- New Statesman
'Exceptionally accomplished and emotionally sophisticated'- Scotsman
'One of the most life affirming reads of the summer'- Irish Independent
'I can count on one hand the books that made me cry,and still have two fingers spare. I Am,I Am,I Am is one of them'- Irish Times
'O'Farrell's emotional acuity makes it a powerful account of a determined and thoughtful life. Her fiction is always a masterclass in empathy and the same is true of I Am,I Am,I Am which lingers even longer in the memory for being drawn from real life.'- Daily Express
'I have never read a book about death that has made me feel so alive. A heart-stopping,addictive read.'- Tracy Chevalier
'I adored every minute. A triumph.'- Joanna Cannon
'Extraordinary. A beautiful testament to courage and grace under fire without an ounce of self-pity.'- Kate Mosse
Maggie O'Farrell
Waterstones has been a keen early advocate of Maggie O'Farrell since we identified her as a talent to watch in our 25 Authors of the Future list back in 2007 aftersupporting her brilliant debutAfter You'd Gone. Since then she's continued to impress with novels including:Instructions for a Heatwave,The Hand That First Held Mine(for which she won the Costa Book Award) and This Must Be the Place.
Visit the Maggie O'Farrell author page
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