There was an important piece of information that hadn’t been made clear to Sooki when she came to Nashville; it was that, unlike the FOLFIRINOX, which had carved twenty pounds off her over twenty-four weeks, this course of chemotherapy had no end. She was to stay in the trial, three Wednesdays on, one Wednesday off, until the regime was no longer effective or, to put it another way, until she died. Sooki, I found out, was sixty-four. I knew people in college and graduate school who took mushrooms, and then about thirty years passed before I heard anything about them again. Now I knew several people who were using them as part of therapy. Plant medicine, they called it now. When you’re young you’re getting high, and when you’re old you’re using plant medicine, like herbal insect repellent. Still, wasn’t it worth mentioning? The Vanishing Half: A captivating tale of twin sisters, their diverging paths, and the hidden truths that bind them. Spanning decades and continents, this novel explores race, family, and the powerful legacy that shapes our lives. Prepare to be spellbound by its intricate storytelling. The days went on and I could feel Sooki slipping, hounded by her own indecision. Here she was an artist who lived with a writer. Here she was the person she had meant to be. One night after we’d finished our yoga and meditation, we were lying on our mats, staring up at the ceiling. Sparky had crawled onto my chest and gone to sleep. I asked Sooki if she had any interest in trying psilocybin. At the center of These Precious Daysis the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores "what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self." When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks' short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman–Tom's brilliant assistant Sooki–with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.

Each of these essays is a sparkling little gem, a valuable lesson in life, lessons in living and in dying. It could just be an astute observation or it could be a pithy little sentence that makes you go, "Yes! That's it!" Sometimes Sooki would leave money on the kitchen counter, “For groceries,” she would say, “for gas, for the books.” She told me she thought she’d put too much of her creative energy into her outfits over the years since she had stopped painting, though she might have said it to make me feel better. In “To the Doghouse,” Ann Patchett talks about how the Peanuts comics, and Snoopy in particular, was an early literary influence for her. This essay suggests that children’s literature can serve as a gateway to later reading habits and the stories we encounter in childhood can shape our perspectives and tastes for years to come.Do you think it was these relationships she had with her loved ones, (both biological and chosen) that provided a supportive network eventually underpinning her positive outlook on life? In "How Knitting Saved My Life. Twice," Patchett recalls how knitting helped her quit smoking and heal from her friend's death. A heartfelt and witty collection of essays on everything from marriage and knitting to the inevitability of death' Guardian I am now sitting at the airport waiting to catch a plane to my next opinion, at Sloan Kettering in NY. (It was not reassuring to know that one of the nurses at UCLA thought that “Sloan Kettering” was the name of the doctor I’d be seeing.) It looks like I’ll have chemo and maybe a clinical trial ahead. I will keep you more closely posted as I move ahead (in the right color shoes). Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

Discuss how writing is an integral part of the author’s identity and shapes the way she approaches life. You’ll never have to give up the friendship or the love,” I said. “And if you decide you want to stay, well, you don’t have to give that up either.” Call me crazy, but that seems like a lot.” We were well into March by then. The spring was cold and wet and endlessly beautiful because of it. The cherry blossoms hung on forever. Sooki hadn’t answered the question, but that was the day I felt as though we started talking. But wasn’t there also a scenario in which she didn’t die? The chemo, the clinical trial, the yoga and the vegetables, the prayers of nuns and all the time to paint—what if it added up to something? What if there was some strange alchemy in the proportions that could never be exactly measured and, as a result, she lived, only to die at some later point from the thing no one saw coming: a pandemic, tornadoes, a straight-line wind. I said, “I have access to every article of clothing I own and I couldn’t pull myself together to look as good as you do going to chemo.”In "How to Practice," after Patchett's friend Tavia's father dies, the friends sort through his house together. In the wake of this experience, Patchett decides to sort through her own belongings. The project teaches her about her sentimental nature. But the flames are not just those of a global pandemic. Lara’s eldest daughter Emily, who plans to make her life on the farm, decides she is not going to have children because of the climate emergency. It is here that even Patchett’s optimism falters. “I can’t imagine going through this with young children. You’re not worrying just for yourself and your own life and a love for trees and birds and all that. You’re worrying about it for the people you love the most.” In bed that night, Karl told me about how happy they all were, how kind. He said that Sooki was good when they left. She had made up her mind that it was going to be okay. I hoped he would ask me to join them. I’d spent two hours on a stage talking to Tom Hanks, and now I wanted to talk to Sooki. Sooki of the magnificent coat. She had said almost nothing and yet my eye kept going to her, the way one’s eye goes to the flash of iridescence on a hummingbird’s throat. I thought about how extraordinarily famous you would have to be to have someone like that working as your assistant. You have a pretty head,” I told Sooki when the job was done. “I guess you never know if you’re the person who’s going to look good bald until you’re bald.”

This is what it’s like to write a novel: I come up with a shred of an idea. It can be a character, a place, a moral quandary. In the case of The Dutch House, I’d started to think about a poor woman who suddenly became rich, and because she was unable to deal with the change in circumstances, she left her family and went to India to follow a guru. Or I would have forgotten about it, except that I got a call from Tom Hanks’s publicist a few weeks later, asking whether I would fly to Washington in October to interview the actor onstage as part of his book tour. As the co-owner of a bookstore, I do this sort of thing, and while I mostly do it in Nashville, where I live, there have certainly been requests interesting enough to get me on a plane. I could have said I was busy writing a novel, and that would have been both ridiculous and true. Tom Hanks needs a favor? Happy to help. I hear you, and I know that if I were in your shoes and you were asking me to stay with you it would seem impossible. But I think once you’re here and see the setup you’ll understand. The bottom floor of the house is an apartment, separate entrance, no kitchen. We call it the VanDevender Home for Wayward Girls. There is another guest suite on the main floor and we live on the top floor. There are people here all the time. You will not be called upon to be a good guest. Sooki got her flashlight and blew out the candles. Sooki had been working for the bat squad in New York when a bicentennial parade passed in front of the Bureau of Animal Affairs. People were dancing, laughing, and so she went outside. She met a group of sailors who had sailed around the world. One of them was shirtless and had a colorful parrot on his shoulder. Sooki had had a toucan in college. Surely there was a piece of this story she was leaving out because the next thing I knew she’d sailed off with them. She was twenty-one. She joined the ship’s crew. They sailed to St. Barts in a beautiful old wooden boat named Christmas. She had once shown me a picture of herself standing in the surf wearing a bikini, a sarong tied around her narrow hips.I came and watched from the open door. The sky had turned a tenacious gray, the rain sheeting sideways. The wind was coming down the street like a train. It’s important to think about your intentions before you start,” my friend told us. We were sitting in the den at 7:30 am. My intention was to help Sooki. There was no other reason for me to be going on the cancer patient’s journey. I had to listen to what she was telling me. I had to turn myself away from the movie of what I thought was happening, the movie I had made for myself, so that I could see her. But, unlike writing a book, we can’t control the ending when dealing with a serious illness or pandemic. We take one step, then another, make plans, find routines. But there is never any way to know how things are going to turn out. My cancer marker—CA 19-9—is nonspecific to pancreatic cancer (it can indicate other inflammation in the body), but it’s an indicator and is supposed to be at 35 U/L or less. It was normal in October, three months post–chemo and radiation—great news—but then started rising.