By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go

"This is an amazing book, harrowing, deeply human, and charming. I absolutely could not put it down." --- Anne Lamott Joanne Greene spent decades as a broadcast journalist on San Francisco radio, anchoring the news, hosting talk shows, raising two sons, and running her life with the kind of relentless precision that left no room for vulnerability. She was the woman who never needed help. Asking for it would mean admitting something she was not prepared to face: that her perfectionism was not strength. It was armor. Then, on an ordinary afternoon, a car struck her in a crosswalk as a pedestrian, fracturing her pelvis in four places and shattering the illusion of control that had powered her entire adult life. Lying on the pavement in front of her synagogue and her workplace, unable to move, Joanne could hear the space between the seconds. And for the first time, the silence had something to say. By Accident is the memoir of what came after. Not just the long, painful recovery from a devastating accident, but the reckoning that followed. Through months of forced stillness, Joanne begins to unpack a lifetime of habits: the need to produce in order to feel worthy, the refusal to depend on anyone, the grief she swallowed after losing three family members in four years and never slowing down long enough to feel the loss. The healing that follows is physical, emotional, and deeply Jewish in its insistence that even our deepest suffering can become a source of meaning. Along the way, she navigates a cancer scare, a hurricane that strands her in Mexico, and the slow self discovery that the woman who was always in charge is more powerful when she allows herself to crack. Written with the timing of someone who held audiences on live radio for decades and the honesty of a woman who has stopped performing, By Accident is a story of resilience that never pretends resilience is painless. It is funny when it has no right to be. It is tender without being sentimental. And it arrives at something close to peace through gratitude, humor, and the quiet discovery that letting go is not giving up. It is finally arriving. For readers of Wild, Untamed, and Daring Greatly who want their next memoir about a woman who broke open and found herself on the other side. Kirkus Reviews: "A clearsighted reflection on the need to let go in the face of uncertainty."
ASIN: 1647424445
VSKU: BVV.1647424445.A
Condition: Acceptable
Author/Artist:Greene, Joanne
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning . May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.