Ten Minutes from Home

April 26, 2010
Greenfield and her parents were driving home from her ballet recital when a drunk driver slammed into their car, killing her little brother, Adam, and her best friend, Kristin. Only 12 at the time, Greenfield's life as she knew it-idyllic suburban days of ballet lessons and swimming pools-was over, replaced by years of grief, guilt, intense anger, isolation, and struggles with bulimia and alcoholism. Those years also see her find purpose and success as a writer in New York, a loving partner, Kiki, and an adopted daughter. A journalist and editor, Greenfield produces a commanding memoir of healing and recovery that doesn't shrink from the suffering she and her family endured, or the often painful details that accompany the process of moving forward, while simultaneously embracing the human capacity for vulnerability and joy. Anyone who has lost loved ones too soon will find Greenfield's brutal honesty cathartic, and her hard-won progress inspiring.