Eating Pomegranates, By Sarah Gabriel

Reviewed,Boyd Tonkin
Friday 10 September 2010 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sadly so prevalent in recent years, the cancer memoir has seldom scaled the heights of eloquence or the depths of understanding that Sarah Gabriel brings to this book. Her breast cancer derived from a heritable mutation, M18T.

So this story of family history and personal odyssey has an almost Hardy-like quality of destiny foretold, as Gabriel fears that "I am going to die, as my mother did before me", and considers her two daughters' fate.

But she has the precious gift of moving between the emotional ordeal of the disease and the genetic traffic behind it – the science and the soul – without reductionism on either side.

Brave and graceful, this noble bid to navigate "a world of complexity" triumphs with, rather than over, adversity.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in