This Really Isn't About You

Description

In 2014 I moved back to the United States after living abroad for fourteen years, my whole adult life, because my father was dying from cancer. Six weeks after I arrived in New York City, my father died. Six months after that I learned that I had inherited the gene that would cause me cancer too. When Jean Hannah Edelstein's world overturned she was forced to confront some of the big questions in life: how do we cope with grief? How does living change when we realize we're not invincible? Does knowing our likely fate make it harder or easier to face the future? How do you motivate yourself to go on your OkCupid date when you're struggling with your own mortality? Written in her inimitable, wry and insightful voice, Jean Hannah Edelstein's memoir is by turns heart-breaking, hopeful and yet also disarmingly funny. This Really Isn't About You is a book about finding your way in life. Which is to say, it's a book about discovering you are not really in control of that at all.

Jean Hannah Edelstein is a writer who lives in Brooklyn. She writes regularly for outlets including The Guardian and The Pool, and a weekly TinyLetter, which Vogue said 'pops up in your inbox like lucid dreaming.' She also writes all of the marketing emails for Spotify, so you've probably deleted her work. This Really Isn't About You is her first book.

Deft, witty and profound, this is a true story about how to let go, and when to hold on. Jean Hannah Edelstein's writing glows with a peerless clarity that had me turning the pages all night. A stunning book. -- Jessie Burton Jean Hannah Edelstein is one of the most brilliant writers of her generation, as witty, wry and unsentimental as Nora Ephron. This is a magnificent book, about families, mortality, love and the hard, necessary work of becoming an adult. -- Olivia Laing Never sentimental, this memoir is by turns extremely funny and extremely sad; Edelstein is a wonderful writer, and this is a stunning book. * Stylist * A most magnificent, beautifully written memoir. Unsentimental but heartbreaking, the voice - true and clear. Brilliant. -- Nina Stibbe A very funny and charming and bittersweet book. -- Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown Up [This] debut book does everything I love about memoir: it hits you with the truth, it reads as enthrallingly as fiction can, and it leaves you changed.' * Elle * One of Red's favourite essayists, Jean Hannah Edelstein's memoir is a work of deceptive simplicity and heart-crushing truths . . . by the end, you'll never want to let her go. -- Sarra Manning * Red * Jean Hannah Edelstein is an exceptional writer, simultaneously wry and heartbreaking. She has this incredible ability to extrapolate moments of grace and sadness from the everyday. And this memoir about cancer, mortality, shifting ideas of home and love is no exception. -- Nikesh Shukla This isn't the heroic narrative about a fight for life against the odds, but instead it's about getting on with things, maybe not in the most heroic way, but in a way that's funny and real and quietly profound. This Really Isn't About You is wry and poignant and true, and I loved it. -- Julie Cohen Insightful and charming, this is a breathtaking exploration of grief and becoming -- Laura Jane Williams, author of ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST It's a wonderful, warm and funny dissection of grief and life that left me feeling like Jean was a friend I never made, and wishing I had. -- David Whitehouse, The Long Forgotten This Really Isn't About You really isn't about me, but it resonated in all sorts of ways: as a woman, as a writer, as a daughter. It is funny and serious, moving yet entirely unsentimental, and bracingly truthful. Jean Hannah Edelstein considers life in all its complexity with great clarity, grace and wit. -- Lisa Owens, author of Not Working A bold and unusual meditation on loss, instability, freedom and home. Engrossing, funny and brave. -- Kate Murray-Browne, author of The Upstairs Room A powerful debut about a woman who is diagnosed with a genetic cancer syndrome shortly after her father's death from cancer. Read if you're into: memoirs, powerful tales written by Jewish women, and heartbreakingly funny writing. * Alma magazine * Jean Hannah Edelstein has written an elegant, beautiful book about a time in her life that was messy and ugly. It's strange to say such a sad story was "a joy", but her gift as a writer is that it was. -- Emma Forrest, author of Your Voice in My Head She writes about the biggest and most recognisably tiny aspects of humanity with such detail - and she's darkly hilarious. -- Daisy Buchanan * Sheer Luxe *