In response to the column she wrote for the New York Times about being so young and having cancer, many people wrote to her about their own stories, and she decides to visit some of them, including a man on Death Row in Texas. Jaouad quotes Susan Sontag in her book Illness as Metaphor, “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” In part healing means navigating from the kingdom of the sick to the kingdom of the well and to honor that she embarks on a pilgrimage, a 100 day road trip. When her medical team declares her cured, she learns the healing needs to begin. And a marrow-deep weariness at a situation that dragged on… p. Along with the chemo, an ugliness was coursing through my veins. I looked terrible–because I was horrible, I thought, with a nauseating swell of shame. I bent over the sink and splashed my face with cold water and looked in the mirror. This is all important, but what really moved me in this book was the honest revelations about herself, a young woman going through such crushing pain and uncertainty, and about her needs and desires, met and unmet. Much of the book details the four years of round after round of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant, and near-death reckonings –written clearly and beautifully. At age 22 Suleika Jaouad learned she had leukemia and a 35 percent chance of survival.

Between two kingdoms book review