I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
By: Maggie O'Farrell / Narrated By: Daisy Donovan
Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
Beautifully written, hauntingly touching; just absolutely stunning…
I used to have a jean jacket I sported with my mohawk, army boots, and bad attitude.
It said “Extended Suicide” down one sleeve.
At 19-years of age, struggling with suicidal ideation and mental illness, it about summed up my view on Life: You were born, you suffered, helpless to control anything, and then each of us died. No getting around it; no point to anything.
Not my first Existential Crisis, and it certainly wouldn’t be my last.
But it’s only as I’ve managed to find good counseling, meds that work (Oh how AWFUL they were in 1987!), that things have sloooowly started to turn around. And what do I think of now?
I am NOT religious, but oh how I’ve been Blessed…
Maybe it was the global pandemic forcing early retirement, I dunno. But I’ve come to truly embrace the tiny things in my life, the small Blessings, the little bits of love. My, how it all adds up, and doesn’t it make me see Death as the only truly shared Human Experience there is on this planet. It only happens once, and it might last for a really, really long time, depending upon your beliefs.
Each brush with death, each bullet dodged? If you look at those in a certain way, if you’re the amazing Maggie O’Farrell, if you can write with your heart, your soul, if you can craft a simple sentence that contains the world, the universe in it. Man, you can change the heart of the reader, the listener. This was our most recent pick for our little audiobook club, and I tell you: All three of us were practically speechless at times, considering O’Farrell’s words, her crafting, the import of her awareness. Did we enjoy it? Welllll, we’re each re-listening to it, catching something new with this next go-round.
Titled after a line from one of the most beautiful lines from a Sylvia Plath poem, where the bragging heart taps out its simple rhythm, that it exists joyfully here and now, I Am, I Am, I Am is a brilliant account of many brushes with death, at times dazzling, at times devastating. ALWAYS lovely.
They’re not chronological, and though they might seem to jump around, each has remarkable references to other times O’Farrell writes about. Yes, it’s just as Life is, with who we were, growing into who we are, and then into who we become, what’s down the road. Life starts in Forever and goes on into Forever. You never can grasp it, but gosh can you appreciate it.
From the beginning where O’Farrell meets a man whom she knows WILL murder her (And who later goes on to rape and strangle another girl, a girl whose very life she’ll acknowledge and remember from then on), to a botched C-section, to the death of a child via miscarriage. It doesn’t have to be her own cessation to make her oh so very aware of fragility, of the gossamer threads that keep a soul tied to the earth. There is heartache; there is also a sense of being Lucky. She does NOT feel that Life gave her a bum rap when she’s critically ill as a child; rather she KNOWS: I was never meant to walk again. I should have died. But? I Am I Am I Am.
Daisy Donovan is new to me, aaaand apparently she’s a British actress. One truly wouldn’t know that given the soft brogue she speaks gently with throughout the entirety of this absolutely remarkable audiobook. O’Farrell, tho’ she speaks of tough situations, tough emotions, is never shrill, so Donovan keeps it low-key, even as blood pools on the floor, even as a young Maggie tells detectives: He killed someone. No asking, just a certain knowing. Add the spectacular arrangements of words to form luminous imagery, and Donovan says it all with just the slightest edge, imparting warm tho’ reserved emotion. Hers is not a performance; hers is inhabiting O’Farrell.
So maybe the intro to this review was far too personal. But expect to truly feel your Life as you listen, to ponder it, to even embrace all the pain. Who knows how many bullets we dodge in a day, how many in a lifetime. Aren’t we Lucky? Aren’t we Blessed?
Aren’t we still Here…?
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