What We Wish Were True

Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death

By: Tallu Schuyler Quinn

Narrated by: Allyson Ryan, Tallu Schuyler Quinn

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Facing death is the hardest thing of all, and Tallu Quinn faces hers in a way that broke and healed my heart. This book is a beautiful tribute to life, to truth, and to love.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed

Profound essays on nurturing life while facing a terminal diagnosis, from the dedicated humanitarian and young mother creating “a vibrant legacy for us to hold on to and learn from” (Ann Patchett)

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Kirkus Reviews

“I am holding both my hope and my grief together in the same hands. It is a loose hold, looser than I am accustomed to. My love is so much bigger than me.”

Nonprofit leader and minister Tallu Schuyler Quinn spent her adult life working to alleviate hunger, systemic inequality, and food waste, first as a volunteer throughout the United States and abroad, and then as the founder of the Nashville Food Project, where she supported the vibrant community work of local food justice in Middle Tennessee. That all changed just after her fortieth birthday, when she was diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma, an aggressive form of terminal brain cancer.

In What We Wish Were True, Quinn achingly grapples with the possibility of leaving behind the husband and children she adores, and what it means to live with a terminal diagnosis and still find meaning. “I think about how my purpose may be the same in death as it continues to be in life—surrendering to the hope that our weaknesses can be made strong, that what is broken can be made whole,” she writes.

Through gorgeous prose, Quinn masterfully weaves together the themes of life and death by integrating spiritually nourishing stories about family, identity, vocational call, beloved community, God’s wide welcome, and living with brain cancer. Taken together, these stunning essays are a piercing reminder to cherish each moment, whether heartbreaking or hilarious, and cast loose other concerns.

As a mother, a kindred spirit, and a dear friend, Tallu Schuyler Quinn looks into our eyes with well-earned tears in her own and tells us the bittersweet truth: We are all searching for what has already found us—present and boundless love. This love will deliver us and never let us go.

©2022 Tallu Schuyler Quinn (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Tallu’s essays of living a spiritually and emotionally rich life in a failing body are nothing less than a master class in how to be fully human. They are deeply felt and beautifully rendered meditations on the gifts—yes, the gifts - of struggle. Of suffering. Of temporality itself. A spirit of generosity and flashes of wit shine through even her saddest words.” (Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations and Graceland, At Last)

“When reading What We Wish Were True, I kept thinking of the famous Mary Oliver line, ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ Clearly, Tallu Schuyler Quinn’s answer is everything. Her life, her mission, her decency, and her love create a vibrant legacy for us to hold on to and learn from. This book, like its author, is incandescent.” (Ann Patchett, New York Times best-selling author)

“What We Wish Were True is an unforgettable memoir of the most profound and private experience. At the threshold between this world and the next, Tallu Quinn asks the unanswerable questions out loud, so that we may all consider them and become wiser and more openhearted ourselves.” (Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink and Bomb Shelter)

Life changing❗️

Tallu writes so gently and so truthfully. I’m learning to take many deep breaths in order to absorb the beauty of each and every moment with hopeful anticipation.

Thank you, Tallu.

I’m not very good with words so I’ll borrow this powerful quote from Amy Grant, to say it for me.

“With death approaching in the rearview mirror, Tallu Quinn takes us on her final drive, fully present to the gritty, beautiful, excruciating, awe, fullness of family, love and life. I am forever changed by the journey. Thank you, Tallu.”—Amy Grant, Grammy Award–winning singer-songwriter

For facing death & living life

This book is for anyone who is facing death (I.e. all of us) and wants to relish in what life has to offer before that final day comes. Written in beautiful prose by a woman with a beautiful soul.