When a devastating skiing accident leaves Conrado, a young, successful professional, in a coma, it is not only his fate that hangs in the balance. His wife, Juana, and their two children have their lives upended overnight.

Juana, an Argentine journalist living in New York, tells the story in the first person, tracing a journey from the vast stillness of the Patagonian Andes to the fluorescent-lit hospital corridors in Buenos Aires—and, eventually, to the relentless pace and demands of Manhattan, where life does not pause, even when everything else has.

As she navigates the punishing world of coma care, hospital bureaucracy, and—perhaps even more bewildering for a foreigner—the peculiarities of the Manhattan private school circuit, Juana clings to a few anchors: racket sports, an eclectic cohort of friends and neighbors, and books. Lots of books.

Downhill is Juana’s account of a couple of terrible years, told with the sharp eye of a seasoned reporter and a signature dry humor that surfaces in unexpected places. Woven throughout are reflections on the writers who sustained her through interminable hospital stays and the logistical ropes course of caregiving: Joan Didion on grief, Jorge Luis Borges on memory, Abraham Verghese on the orderly nature of tennis. Their voices form a kind of chorus, grounding Juana as she—and we—are reminded of the transcendental and practical powers of reading.