A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving

“Here we see what Eubanks is made of, her bare-knuckle, bootstrapping determination to endure … She really does dive into the wreck, applying the same level of scrutiny to her own impatience and peevishness as she does to J.’s suffering. In places where other memoirists might fade to black (sex, bureaucracy, scrubbing a maggot-infested compost container), she turns on her headlamp. The effect is profoundly moving.”
–Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times

”[Eubanks] tackles an often-neglected side of caregiving with clarity and meticulousness. She is candid … Her revealing, sometimes seething account makes clear that, rather than being solo affairs, the safest rescues are accomplished by teams.”
–Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal

“Eubanks braids together her memoir of caregiving with a meditation on the techniques and philosophies she learned from lifeguards, forest rangers, and monks as she attempted to keep herself together while caring for her deeply loved, grievously wounded partner. The book is Eubanks’s attempt to share what she’s learned, because if there’s one thing that’s abundantly true, she is hardly alone.”
–Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe

“Eubanks is both a thorough reporter and a beautiful prose stylist … This eloquent, well-buttressed plea for improved support for trauma survivors is itself a significant contribution.”
–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Gorgeous … This account brims with such unadorned wisdom, though it’s anything but boring. Readers who’ve helped loved ones through a difficult time will be wowed.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

”[Eubanks] writes eloquently about how untethered and out of control she felt … Frank and deeply researched.”
–Christina Ianzito, AARP

“For anyone who’s been told that trauma is a chance for growth, or that wounds are where the light comes in, Virginia Eubanks has written a scorching reply to the ‘exhausting bullshit’ foisted on caregivers. A furiously honest, beautiful, and riveting story about how she managed to stay sane, solvent, and loving. I read it into the night.”
–Larissa MacFarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning

“A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving is a remarkable story of how to escape the trauma and sorrow of the present by cultivating experiences that change who you can become in the future.”
–Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions Are Made

“In its prose, research, and insights, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving surprises, excoriates, and delights, even while it lays bare the enormous challenges of caregiving and self-care. As I followed Virginia Eubanks on this journey of healing, I found new ideas on how to live; reading this brilliant book may just give you the tools and hope you need for your own survival.”
–Emily Maloney, author of Cost of Living

“In her breathtaking and important new book, Virginia Eubanks shows, with focused rage, that caregivers are paying the price for multiple systems’ failures. Caregivers deserve better choices, she argues, than martyrdom or abandoning those they love to save themselves.”
–Brigid Schulte, author of Over Work

“Some writers you admire, some you love. With Virginia Eubanks it’s both–for her tenacity, her noble curiosity, her big, honest heart, and her capacity for laughter as she pursues help for another’s calamity, which becomes her own. Her way out is open water, the coldest element in which to test one’s capacity to save oneself. In the bargain, she rescues us.”
–Roger Rosenblatt, author of Kayak Morning

“In this book, Virginia Eubanks breaks new ground, rigorously reporting on her own experience with a kind of PTSD shared by millions of Americans. I’m sure many other readers will be made more brave by it as well.”
–Alissa Quart, author of Bootstrapped

“Virginia Eubanks jumps into the deep end with kin caregivers and our attempts to show our loved ones that we’re present and capable. But don’t worry–this book doubles as a flotation device, held buoyant through her writing, authority, and humility. A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving is an enveloping, spell-casting memoir for anyone curious about how to navigate the strange wilderness of caregiving and not only survive, but thrive.”
–Nicholas Triolo, author of The Way Around

Virginia Eubanks is a professor and an investigative journalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, WIRED.com, and Scientific American. She is the author of the award-winning book Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. When not sleeping in her truck in the Adirondacks, she lives in Troy, New York.

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