A review by casskrug
The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso

4.0

sarah manguso is really cementing herself as a standout author for me, someone whose books have so much sticking power in my mind.

the two kinds of decay chronicles manguso’s struggle in the 90s with CIDP, an autoimmune disease that causes paralysis and requires lengthy blood cleansing treatments and bouts of steroids. the disease also brought on severe depression, and manguso recounts the time she refers to as “lockdown” - when she was institutionalized.

the events of the memoir are grueling and manguso writes about them with sparse prose, which i love. even though she didn’t keep many journals throughout the 9 year period that she was sick, she pieces together the major turning points with raw descriptions of what was going on, physically and mentally. i really appreciated the clarity and brevity with which she wrote. the descriptions of what she was dealing with will haunt me for a while, i think.

very grateful to jessica from womb house books for speaking so highly of this book after her zoom event with sarah and sheila heti!