Publisher's Synopsis
Linda Wolfe's MY DAUGHTER/MYSELF is a wrenching, highly personal and deeply moving story of a family in crisis and a compelling testament to the powerful and universal bonds of the mother/daughter relationship. By turns a medical mystery and a family drama, Wolfe's book chronicles her thirty-eight-year-old daughter's out-of-the-blue, near-fatal stroke, and the fascinating process of physical and mental rehabilitation that allowed her daughter to make an astonishing recovery. With the same eye for detail and psychological astuteness that marked her many cover stories for New York Magazine, Wolfe makes vivid every agonizing moment, from the disastrous mistakes of some doctors and the miraculous intercessions of others, to the terrors that haunt the children of an illness-stricken parent, to the painful, inevitable - and sometimes funny - disputes that arise when a mother-in-law and son-in-law must share the same roof, and the innumerable struggles and difficult choices that face the young stroke survivor. Beautifully written and observed, MY DAUGHTER/MYSELF is an inspiring account of how a mother learns to take life's blows as they come, to master the unfamiliar language of illness and, ultimately, to let her daughter be her guide as, together, they march through an altogether new terrain. The Author: Linda Wolfe, a longtime contributing editor at New York magazine, is an award-winning journalist and novelist. Among her many books are the novel "Private Practices," the nonfiction books "Wasted: The Preppie Murder" and "The Murder of Dr. Chapman," and the culinary classic "The Literary Gourmet." Learn more at LindaWolfe.com. Linda Wolfe s harrowing and moving account of her family s crisis is an intensely personal and universal testament to the mother/daughter bond. Hilma Wolitzer, author of "An Available Man" Linda Wolfe is a superb journalist and a fine novelist and critic, but she has surpassed herself with this eloquent and gripping memoir about her daughter s near brush with death. A must read I could not put it down. Patricia Bosworth, author of "Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family Story" Even during the scariest, most heart-stopping passages, it s a pleasure to read Linda Wolfe s triumphant story of a precious daughter s stroke and recovery. Alix Kates Shulman, author of "To Love What Is" Engrossing. Moving. Powerful. This account of a daughter s debilitating stroke and arduous recovery comes from a place of intense fear and helplessness, and by looking as much inward as outward, Wolfe tells an utterly human story of unexpected resilience: her own and her daughter s. Ron Franscell, author of "The Sourtoe Cocktail Club"
