Amy Silverstein, who in two books wrote about her experience having undergone two heart transplants, has died at 59, the New York Times reports.
Silverstein, a Queens native, was educated at New York University. While she was a student at the university’s law school, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and received a heart transplant.
She wrote about the experience in a memoir, Sick Girl, published by Grove in 2007. A Kirkus reviewer said the book “sets the record straight about a so-called medical miracle.”
In 2014, her donor heart failed, and she received a second transplant. That experience formed the basis of her second memoir, My Glory Was I Had Such Friends, published by Harper in 2017. A critic for Kirkus called the book, the title of which comes from a William Butler Yeats poem, “an intimate celebration of the power of compassion.” It is being developed as a television miniseries produced by J.J. Abrams.
Silverstein’s death was announced on her Twitter account earlier this week: “Our beautiful, amazing, spectacular Amy passed away peacefully in her sleep on May 5th, 2023. We will be maintaining this account to provide updates on developments in transplantation and for further information on Amy's writings and upcoming tv show.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
