Nonprofit leader and minister Tallu Schuyler Quinn spent her adult life working to alleviate hunger, systemic inequality, and food waste, first as a volunteer throughout the United States and abroad, and then as the founder of the Nashville Food Project, where she supported the vibrant community work of local food justice in Middle Tennessee. That all changed just after her fortieth birthday, when she was diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma, an aggressive form of terminal brain cancer.
Through descriptive prose, [Quinn] shares the beauty she finds everywhere ... a love letter to her life, written as a dozen thank-you notes to the people, places, flora and food that filled it ... Each short reflection feels like an ingredient Quinn gathered and prepared for someone she loved, even the reader she will never meet. Together her words make more than a recipe for a good life; they’re an invitation to a great, unpredictable feast. No one can be sure how it will come together, but it’s easy to remain hopeful that it somehow will ... savors the moments and morsels that sustain our lives even as it uncovers our limitations and the depths of our grief. There is not much we can do in the face of dying but show up for every moment in it and for each other — preferably with bread.
There are moments of pathos, but far fewer than the author deserves to air. Instead, the narrative becomes a prayer to life, with a conclusion comforting anyone on the path to death—which is to say, all of us—that imagines what she might become in the afterlife ... A tragedy whose outcome is foretold and a gentle, uplifting contribution to the literature of death and dying.
... devastating ... The author writes movingly and candidly, and her theological reflections exude a deep pathos with the power to move readers to tears ... This exquisite memento mori will speak to those grieving a loss of any kind.
