What We Wish Were True

Starred review from March 21, 2022
In this devastating debut memoir, food justice activist Quinn recounts life with an incurable brain cancer. Quinn was diagnosed in 2020 at age 40 and tells of losing her ability to read and her “iconic” blond hair to cancer, meditating on what it means to die and leave behind her husband and two young children: “I am understanding that facing my own death requires an active release and deep letting go of nearly all I hold dearest.” Quinn also reflects on her lifetime of activism, beginning with a missionary trip to alleviate food poverty in Nicaragua and culminating in her founding a nonprofit that prepares and distributes meals in Nashville, Tenn.: “For years, I was wrestling with God and with myself about my purpose and place and role, and here it was before me all the while... to grow, to cook, and most important, to share.” The author writes movingly and candidly, and her theological reflections exude a deep pathos with the power to move readers to tears: “God is everywhere, for alone is a myth.” This exquisite memento mori will speak to those grieving a loss of any kind. Agent: Margaret Riley King, WME.

Starred review from April 15, 2022
A lyrical, searching meditation on terminal illness. "Maybe death is not the worst thing?" So a friend asked Quinn, a thought that led her to ponder what might be worse--or better. Diagnosed with glioblastoma, a once-rare but increasingly common form of brain cancer, the author places her illness in the context of 2020, when bad news on the pandemic, the economy, and politics filled the newspapers. "I guess none of us have been living in 'normal' times," she writes, with what proves to be characteristic generosity. Her life (she died in 2022 at age 42) had been one of service: founding food-relief organizations to serve the poor, including the Nashville Food Project; volunteering to aid poor communities in Nicaragua; and, as a one-time seminarian, trying to reconcile a view of theology too broad for any single faith to embrace. Quinn's thoughts as her disease progresses are seldom self-centered, though, as she writes, "I'm not trying to gild the lily here--I hate this cancer." Her concerns are mostly with her family and the grief they will experience, grief that she was forced to navigate as she drew closer to debilitation and death: "It's becoming harder and harder for me to think and write." Even at the end, having given the gift of food for so long--and having carefully distinguished things done for others and done with others--Quinn praises her young daughter for making dinner for her husband and son, noting "how lucky the boys are--and will be--to have her cooking amazing food for them and with them." There are moments of pathos, but far fewer than the author deserves to air. Instead, the narrative becomes a prayer to life, with a conclusion comforting anyone on the path to death--which is to say, all of us--that imagines what she might become in the afterlife. A tragedy whose outcome is foretold and a gentle, uplifting contribution to the literature of death and dying.

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