This is Not a Pity Memoir and Ascent, Descent

 

 

A day or two per year it rains like mad in Southern California. I like rain runs. But my kid is home sick this week, so up and down my stairs I go.

Abi Morgan, playwright, screenwriter, knows a good story when she sees it. When tragedy strikes her family, she does the necessary work, helps and solves problems and quells crises. But part of her lingers at the periphery, taking note, finding the art in the pain. This is Not a Pity Memoir is the result.

*Spoilers Follow*

Abi Morgan's long time partner Jacob, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, collapses in the bathroom one day. A medical coma is induced to manage his uncontrolled seizures. The coma lasts for 7 months, during which Abi is at his side, handling their household, parenting their children, missing and mourning. He nearly dies on multiple occasions. When he is finally brought back to consciousness, he remembers most things about his life. But not Abi. 

At least, not Abi as she is. He remembers, and is deeply devoted to, Abi Morgan. But this woman, at his side, is not Abi Morgan, he is sure. In the midst of caring for a disabled partner who is suspicious of her, Morgan is diagnosed with breast cancer. And then covid happens. Any glimmer of tangible relief in this book is promptly smothered to death by circumstance. Yet, the tone, while not quite hopeful, still lets in the light.

The book follows the medical timeline in linear order and from that spine shoots innumerable nerves of flashback and memory. The decades of backstory preceding the event are presented here and there, a memory or moment at a time. Morgan, on the spine, delivers the memories as if they just now pulled at her sleeve. 

The result is ethereal and breathtaking. The subject matter is heavy, but Morgan is generous and funny, honest and pragmatic. Even when she tells us that she feels self pity, it never feels, as she says, like a pity memoir.

Near the end, Morgan writes "I don't know what the future holds. I can't say there won't be more days to fear. But I have an image, in this moment, that the Jacob we knew, we loved,  is turning, looking down from his dark galaxy above, trying to reach into this Jacob tugging at our hands, calling to him, reminding him that he is still out there somewhere, wanting to find his way home."

In my comfortable house, running up the stairs and down again, feeling dozens of moments of tiny accomplishment followed by dozens of realizations that I have to start over, I think of Abi Morgan. Every small gain in her life is accompanied by a loss. Yet, the wins are real. They happen, she holds them dear, and they are beautiful. 

I listened to this book through Libby. Read by Fiona Button, it is 7 hours and 41 minutes.