Publishers Weekly
11/13/2023
Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporter Nordland (The Lovers) details the fallout from being diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor in this devastating yet inspiring memoir. In 2019, when Nordland was in India reporting on New Delhi’s monsoon season, he was incapacitated by a seizure. Medical tests revealed that the culprit was a stage four glioblastoma multiforme—a tumor his doctor grimly nicknamed “The Terminator.” Despite the dire prognosis (only 6% of patients live for five years), Nordland came to consider the news “the best thing that ever happened to me—maybe even if I don’t survive it, but especially if I do.” Through the lens of his looming death, Nordland came to see how the characteristics that made him a professional success—“the old arrogance, the certitude that dominated my every action”—clouded his personal relationships. He set out to make them right, “exulting” in the power of “love and intimacy” for the first time in his life. In flashbacks, he shares how his personality hardened in the first place: his violent father was arrested for kidnapping and abusing other children, and his beloved mother suffered from his dad’s rages. Years into his diagnosis, with no new cancer and occasional, manageable seizures, Nordland writes with palpable gratitude for whatever time he has remaining and provides a stirringly clear-eyed perspective on his own mortality. Readers are sure to be moved by this openhearted account. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
This is, by far, the most enlightening and inspiring book on facing death—and on discovering the beauty of life. ...One of the most intrepid and talented war correspondents of the past four decades, Rod Nordland has written a love letter to his second chance at life. ... An extraordinary tale of the power of the mind to survive—in war and in the face of the prognosis of one’s own death.” — Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, Macarthur Fellowship recipient, and New York Times bestselling author of It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War
"Powerful...Waiting for the Monsoon shows the life of a foreign correspondent to be both as vital and seductive as ever.” — Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down
"As one of the most courageous foreign correspondents of his generation, Rod Nordland emerged alive from myriad battlegrounds with many memorable stories to tell. More often than not, his stories have been a reaffirmation of the essential humanity of people encountered around the world in situations of war and loss. Waiting for the Monsoon is his rivetingly-told account of that life, and of his current final battle to survive a devastating brain tumor. This book is no chronicle of a death foretold, however, but rather the celebration of an extremely well-lived life, and, also, of the enduring power of love." — Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer and author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
"An unforgettable, moving book by an intrepid foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Though Nordland spent a career witnessing death on the battlefield, it is his own experience with a deadly illness that teaches him how to live with gratitude rather than hubris. It is a deeply personal story that will help readers recognize the urgency of repairing their most important relationships and what really matters in life." — Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times and author of Merchants of Truth
"In this complex, layered, and emotional memoir, Rod Nordland, battling terminal brain cancer, takes us from an abusive and impoverished childhood in the USA through four decades of war reporting in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. After one of the most remarkable careers in journalism, this is the most extraordinary story this legendary foreign correspondent has ever told.” — Gary Knight, Co-founder, VII Photo Agency; CEO, The VII Foundation
“A moving memoir of a life bravely lived.” — The Spectator
"Fascinating. . . . A compelling and clear-eyed dispatch in the face of a cruel and relentless illness. . . . This book provides an invaluable aide-memoire on the foreign reporter’s craft. . . . This is a gripping memoir of a consummate foreign reporter, and an inspiring journal of self-discovery when the 'cold breath of mortality' is on the neck." — The Observer (London), "Book of the Week"
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-11-14
Fighting back against a nearly fatal health crisis, a renowned foreign correspondent reviews his career.
New York Times journalist Nordland, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has reported from more than 150 countries. Working in Delhi on July 4, 2019, he had a seizure and lost consciousness. At that point, he began his “second life,” one defined by a glioblastoma multiforme tumor. “From 3 to 6 percent of glioblastoma patients are cured; one of them will bear my name,” writes the author, while claiming that the disease “has proved to be the best thing that ever happened to me.” From the perspective of his second life, which marked the end of his estrangement from his adult children, he reflects on his first, which began with a difficult childhood in Philadelphia. His abusive father was a “predatory pedophile.” His mother, fortunately, was “astonishingly patient and saintly,” and Nordland and his younger siblings stuck close together. After a brief phase of youthful criminality, the author began his career in journalism at the Penn State campus newspaper. Interspersing numerous landmark articles—some less interesting than others, but the best are wonderful—Nordland shows how he carried out the burden of being his father’s son: “Whether in Bosnia or Kabul, Cambodia or Nigeria, Philadelphia or Baghdad, I always seemed to gravitate toward stories about vulnerable people, especially women and children—since they will always be the most vulnerable in any society—being exploited or mistreated by powerful men or powerful social norms.” Indeed, some of the stories reveal the worst in human nature. A final section, detailing his life since his diagnosis in chapters such as “I Forget the Name of This Chapter: On Memory,” wraps up the narrative with humor, candor, and reflection.
This is a man who has seen it all, and he sure does know how to tell a story.
