Every Last Breath: A Memoir of Two Illnesses

When Joanne Jacobson's writing about her mother's respiratory illness was interrupted by her own diagnosis with a rare blood disorder, she found her perspective profoundly altered. Every Last Breath follows these two chronic illnesses as they grow unexpectedly intertwined. Rejecting a fixed, retrospective point of view and the forward-moving trajectory of conventional memoir, Jacobson brings the reader to the emotionally raw present--where potentially fatal illness and "end of life" both remain, emphatically, life. As chronic illness blurs the distinction between illness and wellness, she discovers how a lifetime of relapse and remission can invite transformation. Written at the fluid, unsettling boundary between prose and poetry, these essays offer a narrative diagnosis of ongoing revision.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Utah Press
Published: 10/09/2020
ISBN: 9781647690014
Pages: 114
Weight: 0.25lbs
Size: 7.20h x 5.30w x 0.40d