Long Awakening, The

In this lyrical memoir, a journalist tells her compelling story of waking from a two-month coma after childbirth, then struggling to put together the pieces of the miracle she received--but missed.

"A searingly honest, gorgeously told story of one woman's awakening from a two-month coma after her baby's birth and her long road back to love and purpose and the rediscovery of who she is. Lyrical and unforgettable."

Eric Metaxas, New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

"A lyrical, stunning tale of one woman's return to life. A laughing, weeping story of a family finding their way back home."

Claire Díaz-Ortiz, leads social innovation at Twitter, Inc.

"O'Connor takes us into the groundlessness of intense trauma and reentry, and candidly (sometimes brutally so), shows what it is to resist, receive, and be . . . grace."

Laura Munson, author of the New York Times and international bestseller This Is Not the Story You Think It Is

"Be careful picking up The Long Awakening because you may be unable to put it down. With clear-eyed intelligence and heart, Lindsey O'Connor succeeds in taking her readers along on her journey through coma, awakening, and an arduous recovery aided by her family and, above all, her loving husband. This is a moving, intimate story, arrestingly written, that glimmers with a keen understanding of what matters."

John Biewen, audio program director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and editor ofReality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound

"Brilliant and renewing. A spectacular work of reflection, remembering, reconciling, and recovering. Substantial and wonderful. Memoir writing at its finest."

Patricia Raybon, author of My First White Friend and I Told the Mountain to Move

"For Lindsey O'Connor, surviving a 47-day coma was only prologue to a miraculous story of science, doubt, faith, and love. Hers is an astonishing narrative, courageously told."

David Schulman, former senior producer BBC Americana and creator of public radio's Musicians in Their Own Words