Still, I Cannot Save You by Kelly S. Thompson
A memoir about the relationship between two sisters
With honesty, love, and humour, in this moving memoir, Kelly S. Thompson explores her relationship with her older sister, Meghan. Tested by addiction, abuse and illness, the sisters' relationship crumbles, only to be rebuilt into an everlasting bond.
Kelly Thompson and her older sister, Meghan, are proof that sisterhood doesn't always equate to friendship. Growing up within a military family, the girls were close despite being temperamental opposites—Kelly, anxious and studious, looked to her big sister for comfort, and Meghan, who battled kidney cancer as a toddler, was gregarious and protective. But as she approached adulthood, Meghan spiralled into a cocaine and opioid addiction, and Kelly's relationship with her sister was torn apart.
Their paths diverge as they live their own lives, and it is only when Meghan becomes a mother that she and Kelly tentatively face past hurts and reexamine what sisterhood really means. But their reunion is threatened when Meghan receives a shocking new diagnosis on a day that should be one for celebration. Now, as the family reels at the prospect of the biggest loss imaginable, Kelly and Meghan must share all that they can in the time that they have, using their mutual sense of humour to chart a course through the darkest of days.
At once funny and heartbreaking, Still, I Cannot Save You is a story about addiction, abuse, and tragedy, but above all, it is a powerful portrait of an enduring love between sisters. (From Penguin Random House Canada)
Kelly S. Thompson is a retired military officer who holds an MFA and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing. She has been published in Chatelaine, Maclean's, the Globe and Mail and more. Her debut memoir, Girls Need Not Apply, was named among the Globe and Mail's top 100 books of 2019. She was a finalist for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her story The Edge of Change. Before that, she'd made the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for her story Dear CAF.
