Pieces You'll Never Get Back: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival by Samina Ali is both a story of motherhood horribly derailed by a traumatic neurological injury and the rebirth of a woman refusing to remain broken. Ali's skillful narrative is rooted in her Islamic upbringing, and it contrasts her life as a vibrant mother-to-be with the aftermath of a disastrous labor and delivery, one that left her brain damaged and her newborn son struggling to survive.
Despite access to excellent obstetric care near her Northern California home, Ali's high-risk pregnancy fell through the cracks. The symptoms she reported, classic signs of preeclampsia, raised no red flags among her care team. Scenes from the delivery room are harrowing and arresting in equal measure, with the attending obstetrician coldly dismissing his patient's alarming signs of cardiovascular and neurological distress. After suffering multiple strokes on the delivery table, Ali fell into a coma. The doctors gave up on her, but her religious family did not.
The acute brain damage Ali (Madras on Rainy Days) suffered was preventable. How does one find the peace and acceptance to move on from a tragedy such as this? Ali's ability to focus on healing and rebuilding severed bonds with her past and present self is a remarkable exercise in letting go. A determination to write helped establish new neurological pathways in her brain to replace those that "were simply gone."
There are astonishing developments and spiritual detours in Pieces You'll Never Get Back, with flashes of the trailblazing Muslim women's rights activist Ali was destined to become after her miraculous recovery. --Shahina Piyarali