In Gratitude

2016 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for Autobiography

The future flashed before my eyes in all its preordained banality. Embarrassment, at first, to the exclusion of all other feelings. But embarrassment curled at the edges with a weariness…"So—we'd better get cooking the meth," I said to the Poet.

In August 2014, writer Jenny Diski was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and given "two or three years" to live. She didn't know how to react. All responses felt scripted, as if sh...