Shortlisted for the 2020 International Beverly Prize for Literature

A deeply moving memoir about the battles waged against terminal illness and a mother’s struggle to comprehend the battlefield in its wake. While some family members wage war against her daughter’s disease with natural therapies and doctors fight on using the latest developments in medical science, she longs to take her daughter to Paris, instead, the city that inspired the young woman’s writing and art. 

Asparagus Wars asks questions about notions of victory at all costs. Shot through with fearless wit and resonant description, this story will break your heart, but leave you richer for the experience.

"Read this book. It will break your heart, but your soul will be the richer for it. Carol Major takes us on a journey of unthinkable loss and seamlessly weaves the personal into the fabric of the political, the larger historical picture. Her fierce honesty is shot through with a fearless wit. She never overwhelms; her reader can breathe and regroup. The writing is gold spun from the ashes of personal and collective sorrow - descriptions of nature and cities, interiors and people, that capture their truth and their beauty. Some books change a reader. This is one of them." (Vicki Laveau-Harvie, The Erratics)

"A superb and courageous work suffused with honesty, vulnerability, and poetic finesse. A book that compels us to endure the most challenging of both physical and emotional maladies with love, rather than resorting to waging war." (Leah Kaminsky, The Waiting Room and The Hollow Bones)