-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
At twenty-one, just starting to comprehend the puzzles of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with another: a wildly unpredictable disease that appeared suddenly and tore through her twenties, vanishing and then returning, paralyzing her for weeks at a time, programming her first to expect nothing from life and then, furiously, to expect everything. In this captivating story, Manguso recalls her nine-year struggle: arduous blood cleansings, collapsed veins, multiple chest catheters, the deaths of friends and strangers, addiction, depression, and, worst of all for a writer, the trite metaphors that accompany prolonged illness. A book of tremendous grace and self-awareness, The Two Kinds of Decay transcends the very notion of what an illness story can and should be.
"Starred Review. What makes this lightning-quick book extraordinary is...the compassion she acquires as she comes to understand her pain in relation to the pain of others." - Publishers Weekly.
"Manguso's abundant analytic and compositional gifts are evident throughout this harrowing memoir." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about The Two Kinds of Decay was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: © Beowulf Sheehan
Sarah Manguso is the author of nine books, including the novel Very Cold People, a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Manguso is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, and the Rome Prize. She lives in Los Angeles.
Link to Sarah Manguso's Website
Name Pronunciation
Sarah Manguso: man-GOO-zoh
If you liked The Two Kinds of Decay, try these:
by Elif Shafak
Published 2025
In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign.
by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Published 2025
A gorgeously written and irresistibly intimate queer novel that follows one family across four generations to explore legacy and identity in all its forms.
by Ray Nayler
Published 2023
Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.
Information is the currency of democracy
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
