Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. Laura Owens is off today. What happens when your life is turned upside down by the serious illness of a loved one who no longer recognizes you. What happens

when you then suffer your own health crisis? How do you cope? Our guest on this episode knows the

answers to those questions and has written about her experiences in a breathtaking and

heartbreaking new book. Joining us is award-winning screenwriter and playwright Abby Morgan, whose new book is called

This Is Not a Pity Memoir.

Abby, we thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

It's a complete delight.

Yours is a heck of a story.

And I'm wondering, first of all, why did you title the book, This is Not a Pity Memoir?

I think when something like this happens, you're really confronted with those emotions that you

dislike and hate the most. And I guess pity was one of my greatest fears. And then the book in

many ways is a reflection, not only on the crisis,

the medical crisis that happened to my partner, Jacob and our family, but it's also a

reflection on our relationship. And while I was writing it, I remembered one of the first

conversations we ever had where we discussed pity memoirs. And this was specifically in relation to a book I was chasing for the film rights about a woman's last six months,

where she wrote about the last few months as she died from cancer.

And it sounded incredibly depressing, but it was the most beautiful book.

It was a book written by Ruth Pickady before I say goodbye.

And we discussed it the first time we'd met.

We'd met at a dinner party, Jacob and I, my partner.

And we talked about this book.

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