She charmed America with her smart, likable, down-to-earth
personality as she campaigned for her husband, then
vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. She inspired
millions as she valiantly fought advanced breast cancer
after being diagnosed only days before the 2004 election.
She touched hundreds of similarly grieving families when her
own son, Wade, died tragically at age sixteen in 1996. Now
she shares her experiences in Saving Graces, an
incandescent memoir of Edwards’ trials, tragedies, and
triumphs, and of how various communities celebrated her joys
and lent her steady strength and quiet hope in darker
times.
Edwards writes about growing up in a military
family, where she learned how to make friends easily in
dozens of new schools and neighborhoods around the world and
came to appreciate the unstinting help and comfort naval
families shared. Edwards’ reminiscences of her years as a
mother focus on the support she and other parents offered
one another, from everyday favors to the ultimate test of
her own community’s strength—their compassionate response to
the death of the Edwards’ teenage son, Wade, in 1996. Her
descriptions of her husband’s campaigns for Senate,
president, and vice president offer a fascinating
perspective on the groups, great and small, that sustain our
democracy. Her fight with breast cancer, which stirred an
outpouring of support from women across the country, has
once again affirmed Edwards’ belief in the power of
community to make our lives better and richer.
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