BETWEEN TWO KINGDOMS by Suleika Jaouad

I came across this memoir last week at Indigo in Charlottetown and immediately decided to purchase, even though I don’t make it a habit of reading cancer memoirs (this is only the second I have read in recent times)

I came across this memoir last week at Indigo in Charlottetown and immediately decided to purchase, even though I don’t make it a habit of reading cancer memoirs (this is only the second I have read in recent times). This is generally because I am a cancer survivor myself and struggle to truly empathise with others on these things - it’s not that I don’t have feelings about it, but rather the stories I read are so similar to my own, they don’t shock me the way it may for others.

I confess that, through the first half of this memoir, I was engaged but not enamoured - precisely because of my own experience. I identified with everything Suleika experienced, but I am permanently on the cancer wheel so I sometimes close off emotionally from other people’s experiences because it’s more than I can cope with. This makes me feel guilty, which I will come back to shortly.

There’s no question that Suleika experienced a significant trauma and was lucky to survive. I am so glad she did.

The second part of this memoir is what changed things for me. After becoming well enough to do so, Jaouad takes a road trip around America, visiting people who had written to her during her treatments. It was on this journey, meeting these people and others and thinking through how to reemerge into life after cancer, that I really resonated with Suleika.

My own thoughts and journey on this front is not for this review. However, I will say that the thought process Suleika Jaouad went through moved me deeply. She, too, has felt guilt for her inability to support her friends in her cancer community at times they’ve needed it, despite how it felt to her when others did the same. I understand this - I always want to be a good friend to those who are suffering what I have, as we generally understand each other better than those on the “outside” can. However, this is difficult sometimes, and Suleika’s writing on this topic cut through me. It has given me so much to think about - and that is where a memoir (or any book really) sets itself apart.

I highly recommend this wonderful memoir - well worth finding. I also found out as I was reading that her partner is Jon Batiste, whose music I love. I also found out she has recently relapsed and back on treatment. Wishing Suleika well - she has so much more to give the world.