Introduction

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • As a young mother facing a terminal diagnosis, Julie Yip-Williams began to write her story, a story like no other. What began as the chronicle of an imminent and early death became something much more—a powerful exhortation to the living.

“An exquisitely moving portrait of the daily stuff of life.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

That Julie Yip-Williams survived infancy was a miracle. Born blind in Vietnam, she narrowly escaped euthanasia at the hands of her grandmother, only to flee with her family the political upheaval of her country in the late 1970s. Loaded into a rickety boat with three hundred other refugees, Julie made it to Hong Kong and, ultimately, America, where a surgeon at UCLA gave her partial sight. She would go on to become a Harvard-educated lawyer, with a husband, a family, and a life she had once assumed would be impossible. Then, at age thirty-seven, with two little girls at home, Julie was diagnosed with terminal metastatic colon cancer, and a different journey began.

The Unwinding of the Miracle is the story of a vigorous life refracted through the prism of imminent death. When she was first diagnosed, Julie Yip-Williams sought clarity and guidance through the experience and, finding none, began to write her way through it—a chronicle that grew beyond her imagining. Motherhood, marriage, the immigrant experience, ambition, love, wanderlust, tennis, fortune-tellers, grief, reincarnation, jealousy, comfort, pain, the marvel of the body in full rebellion—this book is as sprawling and majestic as the life it records. It is inspiring and instructive, delightful and shattering. It is a book of indelible moments, seared deep—an incomparable guide to living vividly by facing hard truths consciously.

With humor, bracing honesty, and the cleansing power of well-deployed anger, Julie Yip-Williams set the stage for her lasting legacy and one final miracle: the story of her life.

Praise for The Unwinding of the Miracle

“Everything worth understanding and holding on to is in this book. . . . A miracle indeed.”—Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author

“A beautifully written, moving, and compassionate chronicle that deserves to be read and absorbed widely.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2019: Julie Yip-Williams’ memoir speaks to one of our greatest fears, that we would be diagnosed with a terminal disease, and to our greatest hope, which is that we could face life straight on, fully, without squinting, and live each day with honesty, ambition, and true feeling. She was born ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. As a young child, she had cataracts that rendered her nearly blind—her grandmother felt she would be a burden to the family and tried to have an herbalist end her life. When the family fled for the U.S., she was able to get corrective eye surgery in California. Still, she was declared legally blind due to poor vision. She earned her way into Williams College, attended Harvard Law School, married, and settled in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Then at 37, she was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. For five years, she dealt with the disease, took care of her family, prepared them and herself for the future, and sought understanding by writing about it. There is hope, anger, fear, reflection, immersion in the everyday, and joy reflected in this book. The Unwinding of the Miracle seeks to express the truth about what it is like to face death--and to face life--and it succeeds masterfully. --Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Excerpt

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Discussion Questions

From Jenna:

The prologue at the beginning of "The Unwinding of the Miracle" was written in Feb. 2018, one month before Julie Yip-Williams passed away, and directly addresses how Julie felt about looking back at her life in the face of death. How did this set the tone of the book for you?

The second chapter of the book features a letter from Julie to her young daughters Mia and Isabelle, and later in the book, there is a letter to her husband, Josh. Why do you think Julie decided to include these intimate personal communications in the book? How did it make you feel to read those sections?

After her diagnosis, Julie writes, “Fear for Josh and my loved ones seems to live in every molecule of my body ... Whatever modicum of security I once felt is completely shattered. If cancer and bad shit struck once, they can and will strike again.” Have you ever felt this way after bad news or tragedy? How did you cope with that feeling?
Julie remarks that, post-diagnosis, she thought she would never again feel happiness “in its truest, unadulterated form”— but that her assumption was wrong. How did this shifting perspective resonate with you? Have you ever felt happiness after you were sure that you never would again?

In Julie’s writing about losing her friends to cancer, she examines the way illness is often referred to as a “battle” that can be won based on hope, personality, and determination. She asks, “Who has more courage? The cancer patient who presses on with grueling treatments ... or the cancer patient who simply walks away?” How do you define courage in a situation like Julie’s?

How does the transparency of Julie’s journey in "The Unwinding of the Miracle" contribute to the conversation surrounding terminal illness and death? Considering her devotion to transparency, did any questions remain for you that you would have liked to ask her before her passing?

How did this book impact your thoughts about medical care and end-of-life care?

How did Julie’s determination to create an identity for herself outside of her family’s view of her, which was fundamentally shaped by her disability, prepare her for her cancer?

Sometimes the people we’re closest to have the ability to hurt us the most. Discuss the beauty and the complexity of Julie’s relationship with her grandmother.

Have you listened to the podcast Julie, which supplements Julie’s story in the book? How did it affect your feelings about the book?
Do you think "The Unwinding of the Miracle" is more about life, or death?

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