The Unwinding of the Miracle

Julie Yip-Williams lived a life defined by effort and incredible self-reliance. But in this searing memoir of increasing vulnerability, she dismantles and then reconstructs what it means to be triumphant. Her writing examines not only her disability and illness — and their cultural, medical and narrative constructs — but love, authenticity, hope, egotism, even rage. I didn’t know Julie, but in these pages, I grew to love her. * Lucy Kalanithi *Powerful and beautiful. * The Bookseller *[When] Yip-Williams was diagnosed with stage-IV colon cancer at the age of 37 in 2013, she decided to write her story, which resulted in this inspiring and remarkable work that chronicles her immigration to the US and her final five years… [her] wise and moving account of her battle with cancer is an extraordinary call to live wholeheartedly. * Publishers Weekly *This memoir is so many things — a triumphant tale of a blind immigrant, a remarkable philosophical treatise and a call to arms to pay attention to the limited time we have on this earth. But at its core, it’s an exquisitely moving portrait of the daily stuff of life: family secrets and family ties, marriage and its limitlessness and limitations, wild and unbounded parental love and, ultimately, the graceful recognition of what we can’t — and can — control… * New York Times *

Born in Vietnam, Julie Yip-Williams was a writer, mother, wife, and lawyer who grew up in California and graduated from Harvard Law School. In July 2013, she was diagnosed with Stage Four colon cancer. She died in March 2018, aged forty-two, and leaves behind her husband, Josh, and their daughters, Mia and Isabelle.

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