Critical Praise

"At the white-hot center of this book burns the intelligence and wit of Sarah Manguso, one of the most brilliantly talented writers at work today. She is a clear-eyed visionary, a connoisseur of the penetrating declarative, an unsentimental chronicler of the horrifying insult of illness and of the desires that drive us headlong into adulthood. With a poet's brevity, with riveting narrative energy, with searing insight and compassion, Manguso leads us into hell and back again; every step of the way, there's the thrill of knowing we're in the hands of a new literary master."

—Julie Orringer, author of How to Breathe Underwater

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"In The Two Kinds of Decay, Sarah Manguso has miraculously elevated the act of memory.  She has found honesty, fear, longing, and beauty in every moment of her young life, giving this book an intensity found nowhere else. You put it down panting with wonder and grief, but never with pity. A breakthrough in the memoir, and in writing."

—Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Story of a Marriage