Final Chapter: “A year ago, (Carol) Shields was given a rare opportunity. Say you’re a novelist, one of the few who have managed to have it all ways: honored by prize committees, respected by critics, admired by your fiction-writing peers, yet no stranger to the best-seller list. You are given a diagnosis that is the equivalent of a death sentence. The talk is of months, not years. You prepare yourself to say goodbye, and then your doctors decide to try an experimental treatment. Somehow it works, and at least temporarily all bets are off. You have a surge of what feels like pure adrenaline. Incredibly, another novel seems possible. What kind of book do you write?” NY Times