SAVING CHARLOTTE

This deeply felt memoir reveals the galvanizing impact one child can have on a family, a neighborhood, and a worldwide medical community. Vivid and immersive, Saving Charlotte is also a portrait of one woman’s brave voyage of love, of hope, and, in its inspiring climax, of self-discovery. A bestseller for Prometheus in Holland with some 80,000 copies sold, Norton will offer this translated edition and retains translation rights.

When her newborn daughter Charlotte is diagnosed with a rare and deadly leukemia, Pia and her husband Robbert make a momentous decision: they reject potentially devastating chemotherapy and instead choose to “wait for what will come.” As the following year unfolds, Pia enters a disorienting world of doctors, medical procedures, and a colorful cast of neighbors and protectors in her native Amsterdam. Her seventeenth-century canal house becomes her inner sanctum, a private “cocoon” where she sweeps away distractions in order to give Charlotte the unfiltered love and strength she needs. Pia’s instinctive decision, now known as “watchful waiting,” has become the standard medical protocol for Charlotte’s type of leukemia. This memoir is rich in both drama, character, and detail. We meet Pia's neighbors in Amsterdam— including the prostitute who lives next door — colleagues, friends, parents, cemetery owner, and others. The narrative arc starts before Pia’s children are born, takes us through Charlotte’s illness, and ends with Charlotte’s remission and the family’s decision to move to the United States. What their family did — watchful waiting — is now the standard medical protocol for this disease. A bestseller for Prometheus in Holland with some 80,000 copies sold, Norton will offer this translated edition and retains translation rights. Pia de Jong is a Dutch writer who moved to Princeton, NJ in 2012. She is a bestselling, award winning novelist and journalist and has been published by the Washington Post and Huffington Post. She has won several prizes for her short stories and poetry. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with her husband Robbert Dijkgraaf, director of the Institute for Advanced Study, and their three children, including Charlotte. Author's website: piadejong.com The text is available in Dutch and English.