Downhill: A Memoir of an Accident, Two Comas, Many Books, and Starting Over

Juana, an Argentine journalist living in New York, tells the story in the first person, tracing a journey from the vast stillness of the Patagonian Andes to the fluorescent-lit hospital corridors in Buenos Aires--and, eventually, to the relentless pace and demands of Manhattan, where life does not pause, even when everything else has.As she navigates the punishing world of coma care, hospital bureaucracy, and--perhaps even more bewildering for a foreigner--the peculiarities of the Manhattan private school circuit, Juana clings to a few anchors: racket sports, an eclectic cohort of friends and neighbors, and books. Lots of books.Downhill is Juana's account of a couple of terrible years, told with the sharp eye of a seasoned reporter and a signature dry humor that surfaces in unexpected places. Woven throughout are reflections on the writers who sustained her through interminable hospital stays and the logistical ropes course of caregiving: Joan Didion on grief, Jorge Luis Borges on memory, Abraham Verghese on the orderly nature of tennis. Their voices form a kind of chorus, grounding Juana as she--and we--are reminded of the transcendental and practical powers of reading.At times breathless in its intensity, at others quietly contemplative, and often disarmingly funny, Downhill is, at its core, a love story: to a husband, to two children, to books--and to the stubborn, slightly irrational belief that things will, somehow, be okay.