- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (May 26 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312428448
- ISBN-13: 978-0312428440
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 159 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #420,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In 1995, when Rome Prize–winning poet and fiction writer Manguso (Siste Viator) was a junior at Harvard, she suffered the first attack of a rare autoimmune disease called CIDP, which would turn her body against itself. CIDP attacks the myelin coating of the peripheral nerves. The result is increasing numbness, followed by paralysis spreading from the extremities inward, until the sufferer can no longer control his or her breathing, and dies. In short, lyrical chapters—the book free-associates between memories, while sticking to a rough chronological order—Manguso recounts the harrowing indignities of her treatments, frequent relapses, descents into steroid-induced clinical depression, crucial college sexual experiences had and missed, and trips back and forth between schools, hospitals and her parents' Massachusetts home. What makes this lightning-quick book extraordinary is not just Manguso's deadpan delivery of often unthinkable details, nor her poet's struggle with the damaging metaphors of disease, but the compassion she acquires as she comes to understand her pain in relation to the pain of others: suffering, however much and whatever type, shrinks or swells to fit the shape and size of a life. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE
A TIME OUT CHICAGO BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“Manguso has produced a remarkable, clear-eyed account that turns horror into something humane and beautiful.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Moving . . . a fiercely truthful memoir of illness.”—The Boston Globe
“Here is not a day-by-day description of this grueling time, but an impressionistic text filled with bright, poetic flashes. . . . Many sick people learn to live in the moment, but the power of Manguso’s writing makes that truism revelatory.”—The Washington Post Book World
“Manguso’s slender volume is written in a sparese, no-nonsense style that can be chilling but makes you cheer for the author.”—New York Post
“Manguso writes this account from the far end of the illness, looking back on it from a position of physical strength, biting ferocity, and unsentimental wit.”—Bookforum
“A series of brief, elliptical vignettes composed of sentences as spare as they are unsparing . . . Manguso pushes beyond the familiar confrontation between doctor and patient to explore the linguistic confusion at the heart of the power struggle.”—Slate
“[A] stunning story . . . Manguso’s deadpan tone works equally well in service of the painful and funny moments, or when the two meet.”—Time Out Chicago
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Quick Read,
This review is from: The Two Kinds of Decay: A Memoir (Paperback)
This story was very intense and powerful, the short chapters made it a very quick read; however it did not leave an impact. The conclusion was unclear and although the content was interesting, the delivery was poor. It felt as though she needed express her illness in her art form before she was able to move beyond it. She wanted to address an important part of her life without making the trite 'I'm ill and possibly dying' type of work, but in an attempt to stray from that she simply did not put enough of herself in the book. More facts than emotions, more about what was happening to her rather than how she felt about what was happening to her. I enjoyed it because I felt I could relate to the material, but an outside eye may not make the same connections needed to make the book powerful
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews) 19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Illness Once Removed,
By C. Hutton "book maven" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Two Kinds Of Decay (Hardcover)
Ms. Manguso has written a medically graphic but affecting account of her battle with an auto-immune disease. Written in brief paragraphs with short chapters, the author is clealy recalling a bad dream that she rather not recall. A poet, her writing is lyrical and conversational. Once the reader starts her story, you will not put it down and it is easily read in one sitting. But it is a book that you will come back to.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Journey Through Hell with Humor,
By Michael Chapman - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Two Kinds Of Decay (Hardcover)
This book is a compelling read. It's a testimony to one woman's resiliance when the terrible thing happens to her, not to some stranger.Manguso has the courage to revisit her devastating illness, and the wisdom to find the ironies, the lessons, and even the humor in her experience. Through her sharing of the story of those terrifying sick years, she lets us see the indomitable spirit and the sense of humor that enabled her to survive them and heal. She juxtaposes pictures of illness against the lyrical beauty of her writing. I find new treasures whenever I reread it. 8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A painfully, poignantly, poetic, perfect prescription for pity-party participants,
By Julee Rudolf "book snob" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Two Kinds Of Decay (Hardcover)
Sarah Manguso, afflicted at age twenty-one (in 1995) with a Guillain-Barre-like syndrome called CIDP, wrote The Two Kinds of Decay after seven years of remission from her illness. (p 2) "For seven years I tried not to remember much because there was too much to remember, and I didn't want to fall any further behind with the events in my life." Of the disease, the reader learns (p 19) "The condition may resolve spontaneously, relapse and remiss indefinitely, or progress and terminate in death." Talk about an uncertain future. In this succinct, simply-written story of a life, Ms. Manguso tells all: of her initial symptoms (numbness in her feet); treatment (and mis) including hours spent undergoing apheresis (p 10) "the process of separating blood into its components" and the painful procedure of having a permanent line surgically implanted in her chest (the apparatus shown on the cover); interactions with hospital staff, friends, family and complete strangers; the effects of the various treatments on her body; and just plain living with a rare, rotten, debilitating condition. Of a doctor, who tries to quantify her high level of suffering, she writes (p 83, 84) "he didn't understand yet that suffering, however much and whatever type, shrinks or swells to fit the size and shape of a life." Near the end of the book she shares (p 171) "Having spent my twenties expecting to die, I turned thirty and arrived in the afterlife with nothing left to do." She's done a lot since then, notably: running, writing, living and loving. She ends with a line explaining the title (I won't spoil it) and shares what she learned from years of agony, (p 183) "This is suffering's lesson: pay attention." The nine sentences that follow are equally excellent. Also good: Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox, Mountain Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and There is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene.
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