About this item
A divinity professor and young mother with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis explores the pain and joy of living without certainty. Thirty-five-year-old Kate Bowler was a professor at the school of divinity at Duke, and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart after years of trying, when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, chugged antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. As she navigates the aftermath of her diagnosis, Kate pulls the reader deeply into her life, which is populated with a colorful, often hilarious collection of friends, pastors, parents, and doctors, and shares her laser-sharp reflections on faith, friendship, love, and death. She wonders why suffering makes her feel like a loser and explores the burden of positivity. Trying to relish the time she still has with her son and husband, she realizes she must change her habit of skipping to the end and planning the next move. A historian of the "American prosperity gospel" - the creed of the mega-churches that promises believers a cure for tragedy, if they just want it badly enough - Bowler finds that, in the wake of her diagnosis, she craves these same "outrageous certainties." She wants to know why it's so hard to surrender control over that which you have no control. She contends with the terrifying fact that, even for her husband and child, she is not the lynchpin of existence, and that even without her, life will go on. On the page, Kate Bowler is warm, witty, and ruthless, and, like Paul Kalanithi, one of the talented, courageous few who can articulate the grief she feels as she contemplates her own mortality.
About the Author
Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we're capable of change. In her twenties, she became obsessed with writing the first history of the movement called the "prosperity gospel" - which promises that God will reward you with health and wealth if you have the right kind of faith. She researched and traveled across Canada and the United States interviewing megachurch leaders and televangelists and everyday believers about how they make spiritual meaning out of the good and bad in their lives. The result was the book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, which received widespread media attention and a lot of puns about being #blessed. At age 35, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, causing her to think in different terms about the research and beliefs she had been studying. She penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I've Loved) , which tells the story of her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character.Her third book, The Preacher's Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities follows the rise of celebrity Christian women in American evangelicalism. Whether they stand alone or beside their husbands, they are leading women who play many parts: faithful wife, spiritual authority, and Hollywood celebrity.On her popular podcast, Everything Happens, Kate speaks with people like Malcolm Gladwell, Matthew McConaughey, and Anne Lamott about what wisdom and truth they've uncovered during difficult circumstances.Her latest book, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear) , grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with limitations in a culture that promises anything is possible.Kate's work has received wide-spread media attention from NPR, The Today Show, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the TED Stage, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her family, continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School, and stockpiles anecdotes about the hidden benefits of being from the middle of Canada.
