I am, I am, I am : seventeen brushes with death
(Book)

Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Tinder Press, 2017.

We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter -- for whom this book was written -- from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers. Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.

We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. O'Farrell discusses the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. From a childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive, through her ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers. Seventeen encounters at different ages, in different locations, capture the perils-- and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries-- of life itself.