Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences

by Gila Pfeffer

Overview

How far would you go to save your own life? In this funny and heartfelt memoir, Gila Pfeffer recounts losing both parents to cancer and the choices she made to avoid the same early demise.

By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost both parents to cancer. She underwent genetic testing and, after learning that she carried the BRCA1 gene, decided to have a double mastectomy. That choice saved her life.

This memoir follows her journey to break the cycle of death in her family. After becoming a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, she grows up, falls in love, and becomes a mother, before her life is derailed yet again.

Her double mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast. After enduring eight rounds of chemo and the removal of her ovaries, she takes her last-ever dip in the mikvah waters as a bald, menopausal, thirty-five-year-old mother of four.

Drenched in Gila’s dark humor, honed over years of repeatedly surviving the worst, Nearly Departed is a story about thriving against the odds, leaning in to her Jewish faith, and leaving a better legacy for her children than the one she inherited.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781891011627
Publisher:	The Experiment
Publication date:	07/09/2024
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	228,788
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Gila Pfeffer is a Jewish American writer and humorist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Today.com, and elsewhere. Gila’s monthly “Feel It on the First” campaign reminds women to prioritize their breast health. She splits her time between New York City and London.

Editorial Reviews

04/22/2024

Pfeffer seamlessly blends tears and laughter in her vibrant debut memoir. Pfeffer’s mother and maternal grandmother both died of breast cancer in their early 40s. Her mother’s death left Pfeffer responsible for her younger siblings just as she was starting college, and made her afraid that she too would succumb to cancer. In 2005, when Pfeffer was 31, a blood test confirmed she had a genetic mutation that gave her a nearly 90% chance of developing breast cancer. In the midst of juggling a nascent fashion career and the early stages of motherhood, she opted to have a double mastectomy. Doctors found cancer in one of the breasts they removed, spurring Pfeffer’s two younger sisters to receive the same procedure. She vividly complements descriptions of her struggles—including her fears of leaving her children motherless and her encounters with callous healthcare providers—with humor, as in a chapter that recounts things people said to her during chemotherapy (“You’re so lucky you don’t have to waste any time doing your hair, you just throw on your wig and you’re out the door!”). The results are as funny as they are heartfelt and inspiring. Agent: Myrsini Stephanides, Arc Literary Management. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Nearly Departed is a tribute to all of us who are trying to live this messy thing called life, and all the surprising beauty you can find within. Few authors can move you to tears with their words—Gila is one of them. Reading this book, I felt like she was my best friend telling me her story, describing the details with joy and faithfulness, and pulling me in and never letting go."

Sarah Cooper

"This is the perfect book for anyone seeking levity in the face of devastation. Gila’s life is a master class on perspective and how to handle some of life’s darkest moments with fortitude and, most importantly, humor. Gila’s writing is honest, heartfelt, and impressive. It takes an incredible spirit to not only stare down death multiple times, but to also write about it with such a clear head and make it funny. Only read this book if you are okay with both crying and laughing out loud in public."

Iliza Shlesinger

"In her intensely honest memoir, Gila Pfeffer applies her sharp wit and superb storytelling skills to closely examine surviving enormous loss and adversity with her sense of humor remaining squarely intact. Gila’s strong voice is equal parts poignant, observant, gut-bustlingly funny, and uniquely her own. Her determination defies the odds. If you want to laugh, cry, and laugh some more while enjoying an intimate glance into the world of Orthodox Judaism, this is the book for you."

Jen Mann

"After her mom’s death upended her family, Gila was forced to take control of her own destiny in order to protect herself and the people she loved. A rallying cry for prevention, Pfeffer shows off her gift for turning tragedy, grief, and loss into something to laugh about."

Emi Nietfeld

"Bringing humor to tragedy is a tightrope act, but Gila does it beautifully. Her writing is compelling and contains an irresistible combination of depth and lightness."

Wendi Aarons

"At turns deeply moving and absurdly funny, this is the unbelievably true story of a woman who made her own luck and saved her own life. One of the most hilarious memoirs I have ever read about surviving the worst."

Leigh Stein

"Nearly Departed is a book about loss, grief, and mortality that nonetheless sparkles with joy. And it is very, very funny. In fact, the darker it got, the more I laughed, which is how you know it was written by a Jew. I loved it."

Catherine Newman

"Not only does she generously share how she has been able to defy the statistics and outsmart her own genetic destiny of the worst of the worst, she illustrates for us the hows and the whys so we can too."

Jess Buchanan

"Gila Pfeffer’s writing is so sharp and funny that you almost don’t notice when it starts to break your heart."

Rax King