I have enjoyed a number of Maggie O’Farrells novels, although realise I have never before reviewed any of them here. I am, I am , I am is quite a departure for her so I was intrigued to read it. I had read a number of reviews before a friend who guessed it would likely be the kind of book I would enjoy, kindly bought it for me.
This is exactly as the title suggests, an account of the 17 brushes with death that Maggie O’Farrell has had throughout her life thus far. A memoir made up of stories of Maggie at different times and places with the common of her nearness to mortality on each occasion. The 17 chapters are aptly titled as body parts or systems, neck features twice and lungs three times. The opening chapter tells of Maggie as an 18 year old working away from home at a mountain retreat in Scotland. With some time off, she is walking and alone when she comes face to face with the man who almost ends her short life. The account of this event is told matter of factly,and yet it affected me deeply as I read with shock the circumstances which brought her so close to death and the effect this has continued to have on her life every single day since. The chapter finishes with her trying to articulate to her 6 year old daughter what she cannot yet say.
“Because I was thinking, because I cannot begin to say. Because I cannot articulate what dangers lie around corners for you, around twisting paths, around boulders, in the tangle of forests. Because you are six years old. Because there are people out there who want to hurt you and you will never know why. Because I haven’t worked out how to explain these things to you. But I will”
This is brutally honest memoir as Maggie O’Farrell describes some of the worst, the most terrifying but also some of the best times of her life. She has encountered so many life changing experiences, many which I suspect would have broken another person. And yet each time she picks her self up and moves on. Perhaps most moving is the final chapter which describes the life threatening condition her daughter lives with and the effect it has on her and her family now, and the fears as a mother she has for her daughter in the future.
“You worry – a lot – about what effect all this has on her, on her psyche, on her stress levels. You yourself know that a near-death experience changes you for ever: you come back from the brink altered, wiser, sadder. You wonder what she is thinking, where she goes, when she feels her airways closing in, when she hears the distant wail of the ambulance when she sees her mother bearing down on her with a syringe, when she registers the joy of the adrenalin reaching her bloodstream. You know that any journal like this to the edge of the abyss marks a child out, makes her different”
I found this exhausting to read (in the best sense of the word). I read it at speed, although at times had to take a break to digest what had happened. It ultimately left me gasping with horror as I read each account of a terrifying and ultimately life ending illness or event.
One thing I’m sure of is that it would be impossible to read this without thinking about your own mortality and near death experiences. As I write this now I am reminded of a story my mum always tells of me setting my dressing gown alight when I was very small and picked up some matches when our family was staying with friends. I suspect there are others too. This is a useful reminder, life can be very short and turn and change in an instant. Life is very precious, and we all need to be reminded of than now and again.
I really recommend this as a beautifully and movingly written non fiction read and as something unusual by a brilliant and well known author of fiction.