Recently, in her fifties, the novelist Sophie Kinsella began to have trouble standing, sitting, speaking. Various medical consultations revealed nothing. On a hunch, Sophie's husband said, "Let's have her brain examined." The result: the discovery of a glioblastoma. Sophie Kinsella has around one year to live.
Here is where the story gets crazy. SK has chosen to fictionalize the newest events in her life. The book is called "What Does It Feel Like," and it concerns a novelist, Eve, who can't find an idea. She is full of guilt; her husband is kindly watching the five children--working overtime to create a "writing oasis." Instead of drafting a story, Eve leaves her desk to purchase a beautiful dress. As she wrestles with self-loathing, she has an epiphany: a shopping addiction could be the subject of her next novel. The resulting novel--"Shopaholic"--changes Eve's life.
Then: the cancer diagnosis. What follows isn't really a plot. It's more like a series of snapshots. The unifying theme is this: the inability of words to "pin down" the experience of living with a terminal illness. We encounter the somewhat repetitive, well-intentioned emails that Eve receives from friends. We notice Eve's gratitude when her family can stage something like a normal game of Scrabble. ("I'm pretty sure a yit is a kind of yacht, and I can use it in a sentence. I'm going sailing on my yit.") Another memorable scene involves pillow talk. Eve, flooded with terror, demands that her spouse will be next to her when she dies. This is because she has a poor sense of direction, and she expects that she will "get lost," post-mortem, without guidance from a co-pilot.
What a strange book. It's intermittently profound. I'm impressed that Sophie Kinsella found the courage and stamina to do the writing.
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