Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Two Kinds of Decay

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 511 ratings · 119 reviews

At twenty-one, just as she was starting to comprehend the puzzles of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with another: a wildly unpredictable autoimmune disease that appeared suddenly and tore through her twenties, paralyzing her for weeks at a time, programming her first to expect nothing from life and then, furiously, to expect everything. In this captivating story, Mangu...more

Hardcover, 184 pages

Published May 27th 2008 by Farrar Straus Giroux (first published January 1st 2008)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired by Paul J. Donoghue

Firsthand Accounts of Living with Chronic, Invisible Illness(es)

6th out of 21 books — 5 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,142)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jan 03, 2013 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars

As hypocritical as this may sound, coming from a memoirist, I'm generally skeptical of the memoir form. So many memoirs end up as bleats of narcissism. But THE TWO KINDS OF DECAY seems, almost magically, to bypass narcissism completely, maybe because it's so concerned with the self's survival under conditions that seem designed to eradicate it. By the self I don't just mean the body, though the disease that Sarah Manguso contracted during her junior year in college was overwhelmingly corporeal,...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jul 10, 2008 Mazola1 rated it 4 of 5 stars

In bite sized and poetic chunks, Sarah Manguso tells what it's like to come down with a debilitating disease at a young age. The book jacket doesn't even name the disease, simply calling it "a wildly unpredictable disease that appeared without warning" when she was 21 years old. In fact, her disease, which is "something like" a chronic form of the neuologic disorder, Guillain-Barre syndrome, lacks a proper name as yet, but is referred to as chronic idiopathic demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy...more

5 likes · like · see review

Jan 07, 2009 Stop added it

Shelves: reviewed

Read the STOP SMILING review of The Two Kinds of Decay:

A writer does not need to have experienced great suffering at an early age in order to write a good memoir while still young, but it doesn’t hurt. In 1995, then-21-year-old Harvard undergrad Sarah Manguso contracted a rare, devastating disease — her immune system began to produce antibodies that attacked her nervous system, which induced paralysis that began at her extremities and encroached toward her vital organs. The Two Kinds of Decay do...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2009 David rated it 2 of 5 stars

I gather from other Goodreads reviews and the jacket blurbs that people who liked this book absolutely loved it. I can understand that reaction -- the structure is different from most memoirs (short vignettes, almost like a notebook or journal of the period in which she was extremely ill), and the writer is very adept with language, befitting a poet.

That said, I had a lot of trouble getting into it. I felt bad for her, and she clearly missed out on a lot in her young adulthood by having this ill...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 20, 2013 Carolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Whether you get a lot from a book or not is always complex and personal. This book is written in beautiful, spare language and anyone may love it.

However, I identified with it closely, which is a great service; I too have been sick and very afraid. Thankfully, my disease, a spine injury, was not so serious as the author's but the way she gets across the treatment process is cogent and honest. The book reminded me of how you absorb every detail of another person's presence when you rely on them...more

like · see review

Aug 28, 2012 emma kate tsai rated it 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely amazing. Her writing style, which is very sparse, is perfectly complementary to the size (very short) and nature of this book, one about a young woman diagnosed with a horrific autoimmune disorder of the nervous system. The book isn't written in chronological order, but is certainly painstakingly organized in a way that makes sense. And the sparseness of prose feels right for something like this: you get sick and it's all about hospitals and facts and numbers. You become, in a sense,...more

1 like · like · see review

May 21, 2012 Lynda rated it 2 of 5 stars

I initially thought I liked this book quite a bit. But as I sat with my thoughts a little longer, I realized it bothered me more than moved me. You don't get to truly know her, but you do get to know all about what's physically wrong with her and how it's treated. I could deplore her plight but couldn't feel enough empathy for her because she didn't reveal enough of herself for me to connect with her. I might have been able to if she had provided a more compelling account of the psychological as...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 30, 2011 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Erin by: friend

Shelves: non-fiction, psychology, medical

I highly recommend this for anyone who 1) has a family member or friend with a complicated, rare, or terminal illness, and/or 2) works in a medical or rehabilitation setting. A colleague of mine recommended it, and it was extremely helpful in helping build/increase my empathy for an estranged cousin who has a severe autoimmune disorder and for some of my patients.

Chapters I especially loved:

A Role Model (discusses her connection with Joseph Heller)
Causation, Music, When, Measuring (commentary...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 16, 2010 Tameca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first word that initially came to mind after reading Sarah Manguso's book, The Two Kinds of Decay, was "stark." The subject matter could be what brought that word to mind. Add to that, the author's treatment of her memoir as distanced, if not clinical. Her writing is very controlled. She also shirks sentimentalities effectively, despite the painful and personal nature of the material. Further, the short chapters, block paragraphs, and abundance of white space seem to form a visual context of...more The first word that initially came to mind after reading Sarah Manguso's book, The Two Kinds of Decay, was "stark." The subject matter could be what brought that word to mind. Add to that, the author's treatment of her memoir as distanced, if not clinical. Her writing is very controlled. She also shirks sentimentalities effectively, despite the painful and personal nature of the material. Further, the short chapters, block paragraphs, and abundance of white space seem to form a visual context of strict form.

These are a poet's tools, without a doubt. Though the style of the piece, its voice, and tone initially threw me, I appreciate the tools Manguso used a lot more now. She is consistent and uses her devices deftly and with purpose.

Manguso describes, studiously, with clarity and concision, medical procedures, characters and events from her life, her confessions, as well as the hows of living with a rare form of Guillain--Barre syndrome. The book could be a sort of polished journal in which she writes with disregard to time and instead writes in what sequence the details make sense to her. The book is a recounting, wound tightly to a couple of principles which I can very much appreciate and relate. She writes constantly from the point of observation, distance, and simply, so that nothing is missed and the reader is held close to the text until the end. In the end, the reader is not left with a hole, or depressed, and not even with apathy, but with a new way of seeing that the author herself has come to and shown quite well.

The book is poetic in a meaning-follows-form kind of way. The crisp precision of Manguso's narrative, the observant distance with which she relates her story, the segments of short chapters and blocked paragraphs which reveal a bounty of white space on the pages, and the chapter titles around which the author seems to write certain memories as if they were prompts, come to mind. I would even argue that there is a poetic turn where Manguso explains a way of seeing that has become a part of this work:

My existence shrank from an arrow of light pointing into the future forever to a speck of light that was the present moment. I got better at living in that point of light, making the world into that point. I paid close attention to it. I loved it very much.

Further, an affirmation that the author is very studied in her treatment of the material. She writes a note about how such things (memoirs) should be written:

I resisted as long as I could. A narrator must keep a safe distance from the story, but a lyric speaker must occupy the lyric moment as if it is happening. Or so it seems to me at this moment.

I believe that Sarah Manguso has done the job she has described above well. Because of this work, I have ordered her books of poems and am anxious to read them soon.

originally published for Explication. Analysis. Conversation. (http://explicanalyconvo.blogspot.com/), October 16, 2010 and crossposted at The Kitchen Sink (http://tlc-kitchensink.blogspot.com/).(less)

1 like · like · see review

Aug 10, 2010 Zoë (In The Next Room) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-biography

"All autoimmune diseases invoke the metaphor of suicide. The body destroys itself from the inside."

The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso is a memoir of her battle with a rare and debilitating disease, a chronic form of Guillain-Barre syndrome called CIDP (Chronic Inflammatory Demvelinating Polyneuropathy) which causes her blood to produce antibodies which attack her nervous system, starting at the peripheral and moving inwards, from her feet and hands to her most vital organs. The treatments...more

like · see review

Apr 05, 2010 Darryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This memoir begins during the author's junior year at Harvard, as she develops tingling and numbness in her feet and hands after a protracted head cold. She initially ignores these symptoms, but after a few days she develops weakness in her legs and difficulty walking, which prompts her to call her parents to bring her to a local hospital. There she is initially diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease in which the body's immune system attacks the protein that covers peripheral nerve ce...more This memoir begins during the author's junior year at Harvard, as she develops tingling and numbness in her feet and hands after a protracted head cold. She initially ignores these symptoms, but after a few days she develops weakness in her legs and difficulty walking, which prompts her to call her parents to bring her to a local hospital. There she is initially diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease in which the body's immune system attacks the protein that covers peripheral nerve cells, which leads to ascending paralysis that begins in the hands and feet and spreads toward the center of the body. Within 12 hours she is admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, as her condition has deteriorated to the point where she may need mechanical ventilation if the paralysis were to spread to her diaphragm. She undergoes apheresis, a procedure in which her blood is cleansed of the antibodies that are the cause of her symptoms, and her symptoms abate.

She starts to resume her normal activities, as most people with Guillain-Barré syndrome recover completely, with no further attacks. However, with a few days, her initial symptoms return, and she has to return back to the hospital for further treatment. With each treatment her symptoms improve, and she is assured by her neurologist that each attack is just a "bump in the road", as he downplays her and her parents' concerns. She eventually seeks care from a new neurologist, who diagnoses her with chronic idiopathic demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, a rare variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome.

She continues to have frequent relapses, and experiences excellent and incompetent care from doctors and nurses, as she undergoes a seemingly endless battery of diagnostic tests and therapeutic procedures. One surgeon describes her as a difficult patient within her earshot, and a team of clinicians dismissively tells her that she has the "wrong symptom", as the numbness in her abdomen does not fit with the known course of the disease. She develops weight gain, acne, bone fractures, psychosis and depression from the high dose steroids she receives to keep her disease in check, yet she continues to live life as fully as possible.

The Two Kinds of Decay is a superb memoir told by a very intelligent and insightful young woman, who uses her considerable writing skills to describe her experiences with a chronic and debilitating disease. Her narrative consists of short paragraphs based on notes she took during her illness, to great effect. Her story is told in a matter of fact style, which adds to the effectiveness of the book.(less)

like · see review

Mar 12, 2013 Dinah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: disability, memoir, nonfiction

Quick read. Notable for an author dealing with prolonged illness mostly without self-pity, but also critical of her own self-pity when it does arise. There's a distance in this writing, which I imagine is the only way to write about things like this, and a very dark sense of humor that is almost mean at times... all of which seems appropriate and interesting.

Another memoir that's organized in vignettes, I didn't see much that was truly innovative in the structure -- the chapters were largely chr...more

like · see review

Feb 14, 2011 Louisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: big-kid, cheesy-memoir

After reading Sarah Manguso's poetry off and on for the past eight years, I always suspected we might be pals in an alternate universe. Drinking buddies most likely. However, upon randomly discovering (AKA weeding the constantly over-stuffed Throg's Neck biography section) that she had written a memoir about developing a chronic illness in her twenties, I will swear on the lives of both Ada the hound and the adorable Alexis Torres that we are meant to be the bosomest of Anne Shirley/Diana Barry...more

like · see review

Feb 28, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is very hard to read. The delicacy and impossibility of each phrase—delivered with the magnitude of several hours’ hospitalization is painful. It’s not spontaneity that tickles you, but a hard, hard, hard stone that is pushed through the canal and at one point relinquished so almost anything can have dire meaning because it has weight. Weight from a doctor saying: Look, here is the smallest violinst in the world playing you a Dvořák violin concerto to It is here again, this certainty I...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 15, 2009 randy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

When you find yourself listening to a friend talk about what is wrong with them, how their body is failing them and you listen, hear, and empathize with them, but know you really are revolving around two different suns, read this book. When you think you understand, read this book.

Manguso ably conveys the corrosive nature of living (more aptly, existing) with an autoimmune disease. Her sparse phrasing resonates so well both for the powerful images she paints and as a metaphor for the distilled s...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 26, 2011 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Why this book doesn't have 5 stars from everyone is beyond me. READ THIS. It's an amazing, engrossing, and thought-provoking memoir that doesn't drown itself or its readers in sentimentality about the woe-is-me-bygone past. The narrator tells her story (not narrative, but not poetry) about her long experience with a life-threatening disease, and she admiringly distances herself from her own body while exhibiting rare and confident insight about that body. "Can't catch my breath all morning," she...more

like · see review

Jul 28, 2010 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars

Manguso is a poet, and this account of a rare illness suffered in the author's twenties (she's only in her thirties now) shows it. The language is compressed, the account depends as much on white space as on text, and the voice, while quite cool, is vivid and forceful. The book is made up of short chapters that are themselves made up of the briefest paragraphs. Manguso succeeds in creating a work of art and also in conveying the absurdities and indignities of being young and desperately sick. Cl...more

like · see review

Jul 26, 2008 Erin Malone rated it 4 of 5 stars

This memoir of a young woman diagnosed with a rare blood disease is a fascinating account. I liked how straightforward it is, even in the face of horrible but necessary medical treatments. Manguso is a poet, and the economical language and structure of this sets it apart from other memoirs. A compelling read.

1 like · like · see review

Oct 16, 2008 Meghan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who write both poetry and non-fiction; people who work on disability studies; my mother

Manguso is doing something pretty magnificent formally in The Two Kinds of Decay. It's not fully non-fiction; it's not prose poetry; it's not notes. It functions as something in among all three. And she writes it true to the existential crisis that serious illness and disability can engender.

1 like · like · see review

Mar 19, 2012 Meg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone interested in the mindset & experience of an autoimmune sufferer

Shelves: memoir

This memoir of Manguso's illness feels more like a stream of consciousness than a memoir, but somehow the medium feels more accurate in the context. This is not a clinical retelling of her symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment as much as it is a reflection of her reactions to the events. The memories are missing major traumatic events but reflect small, seemingly inconsequential details. I've seen criticism that Manguso reflects on her disease as something that "makes her special," but I appreciate...more

like · see review

Dec 17, 2012 Karen Castillo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is not just about sickness but also about the manner we utilize language to express it and deal with it.

The Two Kinds of Decay: A Memoir is truly moving. It will make you realize how unfair life can be. It was seen in this miserable tale, how humans are tough, yet there's this side of us that makes us weak. Good things and bad things happen to people and you cannot avoid it, for troubles and challenges are part of life's package. We all have our sufferings, and according to Bernice Joh...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 04, 2012 Shin Yu rated it 2 of 5 stars

A memoir of illness focusing on the author's struggles with the onset of a rare blood disorder during her college years and beyond. Written in short reflective prose chapters with the lyricism of prose poetry. The physical process of the narrator's illness takes center stage, with little room for character or sustained plot development beyond the central narrative. Includes an episode of hospitalization in a mental ward. Has a clinical and distanced feel - the two kinds of decay refer to the aut...more

like · see review

Jul 02, 2008 Kyle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

One-sitting read: elegiac, shameless . . . the kind of work that reminds ecstasy is supposed to hurt a little. And it does.

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 15, 2011 Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

May 11, 2013 Michele Harrod rated it 4 of 5 stars

I particularly enjoyed this book for it's cool unsentimentality. It wasn't a teary eyed 'woe is me' overview of the horribleness of suffering - although the hell the author most definitely went through, being pumped full of steriods, and having crappy treatments that weren't fixing her fast enough - gave her every right to write one. Instead it was more retrospective, a story of a girl. And what she remembered about 'that time'. The moments that stick with you. The ones you'd sooner forget. The...more I particularly enjoyed this book for it's cool unsentimentality. It wasn't a teary eyed 'woe is me' overview of the horribleness of suffering - although the hell the author most definitely went through, being pumped full of steriods, and having crappy treatments that weren't fixing her fast enough - gave her every right to write one. Instead it was more retrospective, a story of a girl. And what she remembered about 'that time'. The moments that stick with you. The ones you'd sooner forget. The simple stuff - the getting on with it, sucking it up.

Noticing the medical professionals who were great, the ones less competent. And probably the most poignant and moving moments for me - noticing her parent age overnight, as he watches his daughter suffering this inexplicable disease - and being utterly unable to stop it. And the desire for all the things every other normal 20 year old is enjoying - like walking across a room unaided, let alone normal relationships.

A moment of special connection came for me when I read a particular paragraph, and it grabbed me. And I knew I would want to write it down later, keep it. So I went to turn the top corner of the page, just to mark its place. And the paper folded so readily - because the reader before me, had done the very same thing. I loved that moment, knowing someone else out there 'got it'. And was moved the same way.

I wish the author could know - that even if there were times she felt terribly alone while she was going through all of this, she is not alone now. Having shared some of her private moments, we who have read this, we 'get it' too. We know. And we are more grateful for our ordinary days because of it. Thank you, Sarah Manguso, for that.

Oh, and that paragraph... that I folded the page for? It was this....

"Before then, if I had to ride a train for half an hour or stand in line at a shop for five minutes, I picked something up, or turned to someone, or ingested something, so the time would be filled with what I picked up or took in. And also since then - but maybe not quite so much.

I say "the time would be filled", but the time was not so much filled as overfilled. The time was already full before I put the new thing in. I overfilled my time, I think, to hide what was already there Some things are so horrible they need to be hidden right after they become visible. They are too horrible to be seen except very slowly, or in very small amounts. Or they are too beautiful."

(less)

like · see review

Feb 10, 2013 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars

You should read this book. It is the account of Manguso's struggle with a debilitating disease at that time in life when people deserve to be out doing adventurous, youthful things. But instead of being even the teeniest bit whiny, as many reviewers mention, the heartbreak of losing one's twenties to disease is told with a kind of meditative sincerity. It's not that the narrative voice is scientific, stoic, or purely intellectual (though it's a little bit of all of those), it's more like the aut...more

like · see review

Feb 16, 2013 Kiersten Lawson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Those who have dealt with a stealth illness may gravitate more to this concise and beautifully crafted memoir about being stricken with an autoimmune disorder at a young age.

"This is suffering's lesson: pay attention. The important part might come in a form you do not recognize. You might not know to love it. But to pay attention is to love everything. To see the future as brightness. Everything that happens is the last time it happens. We see things only as their own fatal brightness, and there...more Those who have dealt with a stealth illness may gravitate more to this concise and beautifully crafted memoir about being stricken with an autoimmune disorder at a young age.

"This is suffering's lesson: pay attention. The important part might come in a form you do not recognize. You might not know to love it. But to pay attention is to love everything. To see the future as brightness. Everything that happens is the last time it happens. We see things only as their own fatal brightness, and there is nothiing after that brightness. You can't learn from remembering. You can't learn from guessing. You can only learn from moving forward at the rate you are moved, as brightness, into brightness."

"Why do I need to read sixty minutes in the morning, and swim twenty laps in the afternoon, and write a thousand words at night, in order to feel that a twenty-four-hour period has been well used? What are all these numbers for? What do they measure? What do I think I'm clarifying by the act of measuring? What does measuring make clearer?... At the end, unless you are vaporized in an explosion, the heart stops and the blood still moves in the veins, then the blood stops and the tissues still live, then the tissues die slowly, and at some point the last neuron in the brain dies. How long this takes depends on too many vairables to measure."

"She shared that she had lost her hair four times and been in many kinds of pain, but she agreed with me that the worst part about being sick was not having enough energy to feel powerful and fast. Not enough energy to run away."

"The world, with its infinite variables, is the wrong place to attempt implementing the scientific method. Most successful experiments work only in vacuums ... only in vacuums are they true. Narratives in which one thing follows from the previous thing are usually imaginary. Everything that happens, happens in a moment that follows from all the other moments in spacetime."

"The fear of death came once, and that was it. It was like getting an immunity to the chicken pox. It never goes away. I am learning not to remember it. The first time I was brave. I kept grief at bay for a long time. The moment I gave up, then everything -- horror, grief, all of it -- came in a rush. Every other time, I fell into it as if into a soft mat. I yielded instantly, thinking 'It is here again, this certainty I will soon die, this thing I already know that I have not forgotten for a single minute.'"

"The hardest thing I'd ever done, the hardest thing I'd ever have to do, had made me a worse person! That wasn't how it was supposed to work. Tribulation is supposed to make strong people, people who radiate mercy, leaders of their kind. I'd have to do harder things before my self-regard lost the mean air that had inflated it."

"The ward was the only true community of equals I have ever lived in. What I mean is that we all knew we had already lives through hell, that our lives were already over, and all we had was the final descent. The only thing to do on the way down was to radiate mercy."

"I grew used to being sick and looking forward to recovering. Then I grew used to being well again for a short while, knowing I'd be sick again sooner or later. Then I grew used to having no prognosis at all, because with a mysterious disease, all things are possible. My existence shrank from an arrow of light pointing into the future forever to a speck of light that was the present moment. I got better at living in that point of light, making the world into that point. I paid close attention to it. I loved it very much. And then one day, my life was a ray again, and the point was gone. I tried to find that point after the latest, longest remission began. I thought of the point as a moment in spacetime where I could be free of all memory and all desire -- a point that existed apart from everything before and after it. Sometimes I can feel myself getting close to finding the thing in spacetime I lost by getting well."

"Getting sick was a process just as getting well was a process. The most important things must happen slowly, incrementally. This is why moments of transformation are so exciting."

"What if I don't mention the disease for eleven years? Was I thinking about it all that time? What if I talk about it constatnly for eleven years? Am I avoiding thinking about something else? ... How can I stop thinking about the disease long enough to write about anything else? How can I stop thinking about everthing else long enough that I can write about the disease?"

"Nothing happens in an instant. Nothing starts happening and nothing finishes happening. History doesn't begin anywhere. And it doesn't end. Why is it important to me to know the beinning and end of this particular decay I think I'm writing about - which is just part of my own whole decay? And couldn't the decay be called by many other names - for instance, my life?"(less)

like · see review

Feb 25, 2010 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, memoir, non-fiction, favorites

Manguso portrays her experience so well. The poetic paragraphs are captivating. I felt so much emotion through her descriptions of the disease and its treatment. At no point in the book does she show pity for herself, which is incredible considering it is a memoir of her experience with a rare (and difficult) disease. This book also does a good job of capturing what it feels like to be caught in the modern medical system... so many cures, but these often come at the cost of some lost sense of in...more

like · see review

Jun 30, 2010 Schuyler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books

It's kinda hard to review memoirs because you're criticising people's lives, and it's doubly hard to review memoirs where the author went through something rather tragic or horrific or just plain sad, and then to turn around and be like, "Um, your life story was interesting but you did a bad job telling it."

All this being said, Manguso did a pretty good job with a difficult subject: her young life lived in a hospital. In her early 20s, Manguso discovers that within her blood a battle is raging...more It's kinda hard to review memoirs because you're criticising people's lives, and it's doubly hard to review memoirs where the author went through something rather tragic or horrific or just plain sad, and then to turn around and be like, "Um, your life story was interesting but you did a bad job telling it."

All this being said, Manguso did a pretty good job with a difficult subject: her young life lived in a hospital. In her early 20s, Manguso discovers that within her blood a battle is raging (too much? that's too dramatic), a rare disease called CIDP (Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy) which basically requires her to swap out her "bad blood" and replace it with "good blood".

I am simplifying of course. Manguso goes into great detail about her medical history, to the point of making me a little queasy, though I'm not good with needles and blood and stuff. I was also reading it riding backwards on a bus, so that may have contributed to the aforementioned queasiness.

The book reads fairly quickly with most paragraphs a few sentences long, so even in her memoir, Manguso's poetic tendencies seep out onto the page in the form of short, clipped sentences and lots of white space.

Understandably, Manguso's life becomes so consumed by her illness that her entire identity is nearly swallowed by it. There is this one sentence that struck me where she details her time living in New York City, "I had the usual adventures people have when they move to New York." I think that sentence is telling because she no longer thinks the "life" portion of her life is important to recount because, to her, they are ordinary and relatable and everyone has the same experience when they go to New York City. Which of course is not true but these moments in her life don't make her feel special. Her rare illness makes her feel unique and while she wants more than anything to be healthy again, she also developed a kind of relationship with her sickness.

At risk of exaggerating, let me compare it to something else: a soldier coming back from a tour in Afghanistan. He/she comes back to civilian life, to maybe a family with a yard and kids and grocery stores and movie theaters and clean bathrooms and I think it's a pretty common fact that those soldiers have a hard time adjusting to "normal" civilian life (think The Hurt Locker) because the past four, five years of their lives have been consumed with war in a foreign land and no one in their life now, as a civilian, can relate to them, and they can't relate to anyone. They feel almost marooned on an island. Or maybe it's like a depressed person, who while hating their depression, also feels that if it was "cured", they would lose a certain part of what made them 'them'. I think Manguso felt this way with her disease, that her suffering (especially at such a young age which added a layer of tragedy, that her youth was also being destroyed) was both something she loathed but also discovered it made her different, that illness became a new kind of normal, a new kind of healthy.

Quotes:

"And then sometimes I think I've made everything happen, starting with making myself be born." pg.22

"The doctor was older than my parents, and he must have had plenty of younger patients, but he didn't understand yet that suffering, however much and whatever type, shrinks or swells to fit the size and shape of a life." pg. 83-84

"How sure our neighbor was that her suffering was the only kind of suffering. And how sure I was that mine was worse." pg.128

(less)

like · see review

Aug 02, 2008 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nicole, Jen

Shelves: nonfiction, memoir

Wow: this was a quick book. I finished it in a few hours, which--not to get too into the content of the thing--is pretty consistent with Manguso's thesis of the pervasive now-ness of things.

At first I was off-put by the book's tone. Aside from a few well-placed chapters, TKOD is less a sustained narrative than it is a jumble of confessional recollections about Manguso's time spent enduring and recovering from an extremely rare form of disease called CIDP (I can't spell the real name). The chapt...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 38 39 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (7)

More editions...

Genres

Autobiography > Memoir

35 users

Non Fiction

32 users

Medical

6 users

Biography

6 users

Science

3 users

Biography > Autobiography

3 users

Biography Memoir

3 users

Health

3 users

Disability

2 users

Health > Medicine

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Sarah Manguso

Sarah Manguso (b. 1974) is an American writer and poet. In 2007, she was awarded the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellowship in literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her memoir The Two Kinds of Decay (2008), was reviewed by the New York Times Sunday Book Review and named a 2008 "Best Nonfiction Book of the Year" by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Her poems and prose have appeared in The...more

More about Sarah Manguso...

Books by Sarah Manguso

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About The Two Kinds of ...

1 trivia question

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Two Kinds of Decay

“My existence shrank from an arrow of light pointing into the future forever to a speck of light that was the present moment. I got better at living in that point of light, making the world into that point. I paid close attention to it. I loved it very much.” — 2 people liked it

“My friend Isabel says, When you’re writing even a short novel, with at least a couple of subplots, and God only knows how many characters, your brain holds the volume of it beyond the ability of your consciousness.

Of course.” — 1 person liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Two Kinds of Decay
avg rating	preview: The Two Kinds of Decay Goodreads rating: 3.87 (511 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2100881.The_Two_Kinds_of_Decay?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312013427l/2100881.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2100881.The_Two_Kinds_of_Decay?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso[/url]

The Two Kinds of Decay

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website