Last week I blogged about attending a book signing with Susan Conley, author of The Foremost Good Fortune (Knopf, 2011).
It was so enjoyable to meet Conley and get my book signed. Time escaped me somehow, so I didn’t finish her book until after her reading.
But it was well worth the wait.
Conley informs readers from the very beginning that her book will chronicle her experience with the two Cs: China and cancer.
In the first half, she relates with honesty and humor her family’s adjustment in a new land: Beijing the year before the 2008 Olympics.
Living in Beijing is not easy, but Conley makes a home for her family (two young sons and a husband who’s an Old China Hand) and learns to converse in Mandarin. And then she discovers a couple of lumps under her collarbone one day while reading to her sons.
The second half of the book details not only her frustrating cancer diagnosis in one of China’s best hospitals, but also her feelings that surround cancer: isolation, unfairness, anger, and sadness. In the end, Conley quietly comes to terms with these emotions and her two Cs.
Leave a Reply