RaveThe Philly VoiceIt is a story about finding humanity on the 'other' side, whichever side that may be ...Grodstein takes on the voice of 43-year-old Karen Neulander, a Democratic political consultant who’s dying from late-stage ovarian cancer and preparing to leave her young son, Jacob, behind ... So she writes Jacob a book to document their short history. It is a loving, sincere, often grueling account that refuses sentimentality. Karen lays it all on the table ... Our Short History is most hard-hitting in its essential truth about what it means to be a dying, or even just an aging woman in the pressure cooker that is American culture, where youth and vitality are valued above all else.
