The Brave In-Between. Notes from the Last Room

Author: Low, Amy

Publication Date:

June 2024

Pages:

224

Original language and publisher

English (USA) | Hachette Books

Territories Handled

World excl. English

Genre

Memoir

The Brave In-Between. Notes from the Last Room

Author: Low, Amy

Synopsis

So many people are in pain these days, enduring hard times, facing challenges. They are wondering, ‘How do I do this?’ Amy Low is the perfect guide. – David Brooks, New York Times columnist and bestselling author

“This book will be a treasure, to live by, to wrap up with a bow and give to everyone you know.” —Amanda Ripley, New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Kids in the World, The Unthinkable, and High Conflict

“Deeply wise, profound, gorgeously written.” —Dave Isay, New York Times bestselling author of Listening is an Act of Love

“Amy’s story of hope and perseverance in the face of pain and heartache is one that will resonate with and inspire many.” —Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president, Emerson Collective

“Poignant and powerful.” —J. Dana Trent, New York Times bestselling author of Preparing for Death while Savoring Life

Lessons and advice for navigating uncertainty in the worst of times.

Amy Low resides in a room that is her last—her medical team is clear-eyed with her: there is no cure for Stage IV metastatic colon cancer, and the odds of long-term survival are scant. Miraculously, she’s lived four years with her diagnosis, and that life between life has changed her.

Through the swirl of prolonged trauma and unbearable grief, a vantage point emerged—a window that showed her the way to relish life and be kinder to herself and others while living through the inevitable loss and heartbreak that crosses everyone’s paths. Instead of viewing joy and sorrow as opposites, she saw how both exist in harmony, full of mystery and surprise. Instead of seeing days as succeeding or failing, and physical selves as healthy or unwell, she’s learned to carry both achievements and afflictions in stride. And instead of bitterness and betrayal, forgiveness—toward her body, toward others, toward herself—became her wisest light.

Mapping her experiences to the words that St. Paul wrote in his own last roomThe Brave In-Between is a sacred invitation to explore that space between triumph and tragedy. We all have a heart to marvel at miracles, a lightness to spot the absurdity, and an imagination to pause and extend empathy for others—even when tragedy strikes. Sometimes we just need a guide.

“This book is an invitation to reside in the brave in between—the courageous middle—in a way that’s equipped by the stories we gather from our very best and very worst days. It explores the possibilities of this courageous middle of our own lives, and the broader courageous middle space in our culture – a space where moral courage, forgiveness, and resetting with grace are becoming far too rare… This is a space where dualities might find a way to dance.”

Marketing Information

Early support:

“I first came to know Amy Low when she began working with Emerson Collective nearly nine years ago. From the beginning, it was clear that Amy is a gifted storyteller. She used her gift to help shape early narratives for Emerson and has helped our partners and Fellows tell their stories. Now she is telling her own story—as a mother battling cancer. Amy’s story of hope and perseverance in the face of pain and heartache is one that will resonate with and inspire many.”
Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president, Emerson Collective

“So many people are in pain these days, enduring hard times, facing challenges. They are wondering, ‘How do I do this?’ Amy Low is the perfect guide. She has been in the depths and she has not come out with empty hands. She carries a wealth of hard, realistic, credible wisdom. She draws on a deep tradition of intellectual and moral knowledge and enlivens it with her own contemporary voice and experience. I can’t wait to read this book.”
David Brooks, New York Times columnist and bestselling author of The Road to Character, The Second Mountain, The Social Animal, and Bobos in Paradise.

“We are all, sooner or later, in search of a way to ‘be’ in the midst of uncertainty, injustice and fear. Every day, all over the world, people get news they cannot bear–of a diagnosis, a coup, a melting polar ice cap, a sudden, wrenching loss, a newly named variant. With honesty, humor, wisdom and grace, Amy Low shines a light through the darkness. Again and again, I read her blog posts through tears and laughter, in the same passage. I thought to myself: ‘This is how I want to be!’ Fully alive in the best and worst of times. This will be a book to treasure, to live by, to wrap up with a bow and give to everyone we know.”
Amanda Ripley, New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Kids in the World, The Unthinkable and High Conflict.

“I’ve been following Amy’s short reflections for the past 2/12 years and have been awestruck, over and over again, by the power of her words. So many of these dispatches read like poetry—deeply wise, profound, gorgeously written. Her words vibrate with optimism, humor and her relentless spirit. In these dystopian days we need a voice like Amy’s to shake us out of our stupor and remind us to take one more step forward, one more step up that mountain. I cannot wait to read this book.”
Dave Isay, founder of NPR’s StoryCorps, and author of the New York Times bestselling Listening is an Act of Love, Callings among others.