I Am, I Am, I Am

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.

November 15, 2017
A woman's striking and unexpected foray into near-death experiences.What happens to us when we near death? When the decisions we have made bring us to the moment when it might be too late to look back and change our minds? These are two of the many questions O'Farrell (This Must Be the Place, 2016, etc.) explores as she embarks in a memoiristic exercise in writing down, archiving, anthologizing, and understanding all the instances in which she almost lost her life. Written in nonchronological order, the stories are organized by body parts. For example, in "Neck: 1990," the author remembers a dark and eerie evening walking back to the cottage where she worked and stumbling upon an all-too-familiar man. "I have an instinct for the onset of violence," she writes, "I seemed to incite it in others for reasons I never quite understood." The man made her strap a pair of binoculars around her neck to watch the ducks. Nothing happened to her that night, but a different woman was later found strangled by a pair of binoculars, allegedly by the same man. The tales that follow this opener involve much more intensely medical experiences, such as the nasty strain of amoebic dysentery O'Farrell caught in China ("the amoeba was winning...I was ready to die, to abandon the fight. It was easier than staying alive") or a life-changing neurological illness that modified, at a very young age, the rest of her life. The author also tells the stories of her multiple--at times unsuccessful--pregnancies. Throughout, the narrative is compelling and visceral; O'Farrell knows how to draw in readers. Perhaps the only downside to the book's organization is that because the stories aren't in chronological order, some of them feel repetitive, as the author occasionally provides redundant context about the events in her life.An intriguing and mostly engaging collection of life-threatening stories.

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Starred review from January 1, 2018
Irish-born, Edinburgh-based O'Farrell, the author of seven ensnaring novels, including This Must Be the Place (2016), recounts events that seem more imagined than real in this gripping, episodic memoir. In 17 essays that jump back and forth in time, each titled with the name of an endangered body part, O'Farrell recounts, with peerlessly matter-of-fact lucidity, 17 nearly fatal events. She begins with Neck (1990), in which, at 18, she is confronted by a dangerous man on a hiking path. In Lungs (1988), she leaps, in the dark, off a harbor wall into the sea and nearly drowns. It is here that she seeds our curiosity by noting that a childhood illness resulted in neurological damage that initially landed her in a wheelchair and that continues to undermine her movement and balance. Yet cautious she's never been. Her astounding brushes with death chronicle continues with a barely averted plane crash, other near-drownings and terrifying encounters with violent men, participation in a circus act with a blindfolded knife-thrower, and a nearly fatal C-section. O'Farrell finally tells the full, harrowing, strangely beautiful story of her battle with encephalitis, only to then reveal her daughter's severe immune disorder. O'Farrell's intrepidness and determination are awe-inspiring, her experiences overwhelming, and her writing impeccable. This is a memoiristic tour de force.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 1, 2018

This memoir will make readers look more closely at the danger they've brushed up against in their lives. British novelist O'Farrell (This Must Be the Place; Instructions for a Heat Wave) explores episodes in which she came close to death: a near drowning, an encounter with a murderer on a deserted hiking trail, dysentery, meningitis, close calls during surgeries, to name a few. With each chapter, the author reveals more of her experiences, including parenting a daughter with multiple and severe allergies. Though not expressly addressed to her daughter, O'Farrell's book serves to show her (and readers) that we are not alone in our clashes with fate. In confronting her own mortality, she proves that she isn't isolated in these frightening moments, but instead resilient and courageous. VERDICT A heartfelt meditation on the fragility and wonder of life, O'Farrell's work emphasizes the body's desire to fight for survival, even as it takes on challenges from all sides. (Memoir, 12/13/17)--RD

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2018

British novelist O'Farrell has won the Betty Trask, Somerset Maugham, and Costa Novel awards, so expect this memoir to grip you down to your fingertips, and that's not just a guess; the Guardian calls it extraordinary. Her brushes with death range from battling childhood encephalitis to encountering a dangerous man on a mountain path. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.