They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice
is much more than a cancer memoir. It's a meditation on living. It's a pause between polarities. Cancer is almost an afterthought. Inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal's
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
, it celebrates the tiny moments that spotlight the miracle of being alive, the messiness of being human.
Rice
is a weirdly funny book about mortality. It's about family, genetics, nature vs. nurture, the Rust Belt, EPA clean-up zones, and more. Modeled on the work of stream-of-consciousness writers (Richard Brautigan, Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson), the book explores the way a mind works-complete with leaps and spirals-while reflecting on a life thoroughly lived against a dire breast cancer diagnosis.