The Cost of Hope

April 2, 2012
In this affecting memoir, Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, narrates a history of marriage and its end, when her husband of 20 years, Terrence Foley, dies at 67 of kidney cancer. They met in post–Cultural Revolution China in 1983, where she was on assignment and he was bringing soybeans to the Chinese masses. Foley announced almost immediately that they were going to marry and have kids. Bennett, 12 years his junior, intended to never see him again. And yet, feeling the overpowering loneliness of being a foreigner in a very strange land, the next day, she went on a walk with him, followed by movies and dinners. They infuriated each other, but when he traveled she realized she was even more miserable. Three years later they’re stateside and happily married despite the fighting. Their lives are ordinary—they have a son, adopt a daughter, change jobs, move multiple times—until his cancer in late 2000. Foley has surgery to remove his colon and one of his kidneys, and cheats death twice more over the next seven years as they decide to get on with doing what they love. Foley earns the Ph.D. he started in 1957 and learns Arabic while Bennett becomes the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and they watch their children grow up. Although their love affair ends sadly, their story of how to fight for any hope you can get when there seems to be none, provides touching and instructive wisdom for the millions affected by cancer. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

Starred review from May 1, 2012
The hot-button issue of unregulated health-care costs underscores this engaging memoir of marriage and terminal illness. Bennett (In Memoriam, 1997, etc.), a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and executive editor at Bloomberg News, met Terence Foley at a party while on assignment in China in 1983. Lounging on a sofa in a bow tie and horn-rimmed glasses, he plied the lonesome, deadline-driven reporter with tall tales of being a Fulbright Scholar--in reality, however, he was the wacky director of the American Soybean Association. Nevertheless, this became their "signature story," and a lifetime love was born for Bennett and her visceral, fastidiously dressed beau, 12 years her senior. Their eccentric, restless 20-year marriage produced two children (one biological, one adopted) and plenty of highs and lows, all recounted through the author's droll, conversational anecdotes. Foley's colon cancer was diagnosed in late 2000, followed by the discovery of a rare, aggressive kidney carcinoma, which may (or may not have) contributed to his death. Bennett discovered the ambiguity of his diagnosis while poring over her husband's medical records. While retracing the path of his terminal prognosis, she uncovered a flawed system of mismanaged lab information, astronomical insurance charges and conditional physician reimbursements. The author leaves readers with more questions than answers after dealing with an industry that sets prices "like a giant Chinese bazaar" yet facilitated her husband's participation in experimental clinical trials. A moving, beautifully written chronicle of true love and a clarion call for health-care reform.

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Starred review from April 15, 2012

Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist Bennett (executive editor, Bloomberg News) presents a beautifully written memoir of her marriage to her eccentric husband and fellow journalist, Terence Foley, and his long battle with an obscure form of kidney cancer. Along with the touching love story, Bennett addresses the agony and complexity of dealing with a long-term illness as the couple move from one specialist to another and across the United States. After Terence's death, Bennett began to reconstruct their odyssey by examining a multitude of paperwork from different hospitals and insurance companies as well as interviewing her husband's many physicians. VERDICT It is not news that our hospitals and health-care delivery systems are costly and complex. What makes this book special is the factual, levelheaded, and personal retelling of an ever-more-common experience--the long treatment of a fatal illness and, eventually, death. Bennett's diligence and graceful reconstruction of the happy days as well as her often confusing and difficult time as her husband was dying make for moving reading. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/12/11.]--Olga B. Wise, Austin, TX

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
In this thought-provoking memoir, Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize winner, expands on her 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek story about her second husband's $618,616 battle with a rare form of kidney cancer that metastasized to his brain and ultimately killed him. Were all the drugs and medical treatments worth it? Did Bennett do the right thing? Frustratingly, she isn't sure. Ultimately, the book raises many questions ( What can we do about a system that is so maddeningly complex to navigate? ) but leaves it up to the reader to answer them. Bennett, now an executive editor at Bloomberg News, draws the reader into the story with anecdotes from her lovely courtship with her eccentric, talented husband (he wore a bow tie, played more than 15 musical instruments, and spoke six languages). She meets him in China, marries him, gives birth to one child, and adopts another. The details of his illness are heartbreaking. (To get his family accustomed to living without him, he planned to stay at work a little later every night.) Get ready to read and weep.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)