Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of My Stroke

by David Talbot

Overview

Acclaimed writer, bestselling author, and founder of Salon magazine, David Talbot has brought us masterful and explosive headline-breaking stories for over 25 years with books like the New York Times bestsellers Brothers, The Devil's Chessboard, and nationally recognized Season of the Witch. Now for the first time, journalist and historian David Talbot turns inward in this intimate journey through the life-changing year following his stroke, a year that turned his life upside down, and ultimately, saved him.

• A portrait of how a health crisis can truly shift one's perspective on life and purpose
• Includes insider stories on the wild early days of Internet journalism, tech culture, and Hollywood
• Powerful storytelling of the physical, emotional, and psychological impact a stroke has had on the author's identity

Fans of My Stroke of Insight, The Devil's Chessboard and Season of the Witch will love this book.

This book is perfect for:
• Fans of David Talbot
• Anyone dealing with or recovering from health issues (particularly stroke or brain injury) and looking for insight and inspiration
• Gen Xers and baby boomers who understand their risk for stroke
• Entrepreneurs scared of burnout

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452183336
Publisher:	Chronicle Books
Publication date:	01/14/2020
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	1,019,822
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David Talbot is the esteemed author of four popular history books, and the founder and original editor in chief of one of the first entirely digital publications, Salon magazine. A former senior editor of Mother Jones magazine, Talbot is a journalist and columnist who has written for the New Yorker, Time, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. His book Season of the Witch was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller for four years and was the 2015 San Francisco One City One Book pick.

Table of Contents

Introduction 13

Chapter 1 Blow-Up 21

Chapter 2 Hollywood Gave Me a Stroke 31

Chapter 3 Riding the Dragon 39

Chapter 4 Alive Again: Life on the Stroke Ward 55

Chapter 5 A Christmas Miracle 67

Chapter 6 A Christmas Miracle 2 73

Chapter 7 The Meditations of Mr. Toad 79

Chapter 8 Dance Therapy 87

Chapter 9 Thomas Merton and the Light Within 93

Chapter 10 A Person, Not a Patient 99

Chapter 11 Sanctuary City 111

Chapter 12 "What Fresh Hell Is This?" 121

Chapter 13 Magritte and Me 125

Chapter 14 Tutto a Posto: The Meaning of Life … and Death 133

Chapter 15 All Things Must Pass 141

Chapter 16 Circle of Love 151

Postscript: The Future's Not Ours to See 159

Appendix: Songs for Strokeys: A Dance and Meditation List for Stroke Thrivers 165

Acknowledgments 171

Author's Note on Cover Art 173

Editorial Reviews

"A gripping narrative. Between Heaven and Hell is a very honest and personal tale of Talbot's struggles and healing-both physical and emotional-in the year following his stroke." -Alta magazine

"A gripping narrative. Between Heaven and Hell is a very honest and personal tale of Talbot's struggles and healing-both physical and emotional-in the year following his stroke." -Alta magazine

"Touching, informative, sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing, I couldn't put it down." —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author

"Touching, informative, sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing, I couldn't put it down." —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author

"A deeply affecting examination of mortality, ambition and the priorities of a man who dodged death to live better days." —Dave Eggers, bestselling author of The Circle, Zeitoun, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

"A deeply affecting examination of mortality, ambition and the priorities of a man who dodged death to live better days." —Dave Eggers, bestselling author of The Circle, Zeitoun, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

"What makes this book so special is the complete absence of resentment and self-pity. This is a story beyond catharsis—it's a rebirth, a celebration, a hallucinatory and joyous examination of the aftermath of illness with love and gratitude infused on every page." —Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire and The Great Pretender

"What makes this book so special is the complete absence of resentment and self-pity. This is a story beyond catharsis—it's a rebirth, a celebration, a hallucinatory and joyous examination of the aftermath of illness with love and gratitude infused on every page." —Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire and The Great Pretender

"Talbot demonstrates the conviction of someone who has been there and back and now knows what is really at stake.. Inspiration for others facing similar challenges." —Kirkus Reviews

"Talbot demonstrates the conviction of someone who has been there and back and now knows what is really at stake.. Inspiration for others facing similar challenges." —Kirkus Reviews

"A lighthearted look at myriad effects that a serious medical trauma can have on a person's life.. Given the fatal and often mentally debilitating nature of strokes, it makes sense that such memoirs are so few; Talbot's accomplishment is rare and that much more impressive." -San Francisco Examiner

"A lighthearted look at myriad effects that a serious medical trauma can have on a person's life.. Given the fatal and often mentally debilitating nature of strokes, it makes sense that such memoirs are so few; Talbot's accomplishment is rare and that much more impressive." -San Francisco Examiner

"Between Heaven and Hell should be an indispensable help for all those who survive strokes and those who care for survivors in the aftermath." -Writers Readers

"Between Heaven and Hell should be an indispensable help for all those who survive strokes and those who care for survivors in the aftermath." -Writers Readers

From the Publisher

2019-09-29
A near-death, new-life memoir by the San Francisco author and founder of Salon.

In short chapters that had their genesis on Facebook, Talbot (The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government, 2015, etc.) recounts a year of recovery, upheaval, and transformation following the stroke that almost killed him. He also reflects on the pace of the stress-filled career that brought him to this precipice, in his mid-60s, while he was still trying to navigate his way through considerable Hollywood challenges in attempting to bring his books to the screen. As the hard-charging CEO and editor-in-chief of Salon, he championed progressive investigative journalism at a time when the industry was heading toward a financial abyss. "I believed then that Salon was worth dying for. We were caught up in history's hurricane," he writes, with the somewhat messianic self-importance that occasionally typifies his tone. (Talbot also compares himself to the revered mystic monk Thomas Merton, though "not religious.") Though the author is a Type A personality in overdrive, his lessons should strike a responsive chord in many readers. "My stroke did not just change my life," he writes. "It saved my life." By necessity, he slowed down, he lost a lot of weight, and he pared his existence down to the essentials and became focused on what really matters. He made his peace with death. He learned to "live each moment like it's your last, because it just might be. Embrace your mortality. Even celebrate it. And let the shadow of death make the light in your life only seem brighter." These are the sort of sentiments upon which countless self-help books are constructed, but Talbot demonstrates the conviction of someone who has been there and back and now knows what is really at stake.

A book Talbot likely wrote mainly for himself, but it should provide inspiration for others facing similar challenges.

Kirkus Reviews