Fall Apart, Carry On

Over the years, Alice Daniel and her close friend Diana Marcum spent plenty of hours at Diana’s kitchen table discussing which news stories they were working on in California’s incredibly diverse San Joaquin Valley, Alice as a public radio reporter, Diana as a Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper reporter, and later, an author of two travel memoirs.

Then they both quit their jobs in 2022, Alice to go live in Ireland for a year and Diana, to follow her dream of writing a third travel memoir about buying a cottage in the Azores.

But nothing happened as planned.

Alice got hit by a car in October of that year six weeks into her stay in Ireland. Of all her friends, Diana was the one who reminded her how lucky she was. Had the taxi been driving faster, had the car been bigger, she might be gone. Diana lost both of her parents when she was still a teenager and it shaped the way she viewed the world. She valued life and friendship as much as anyone.

But just as Alice was recovering from her accident, Diana started to feel “not right.” For months, she complained of fatigue and headaches. Doctors referred her to therapists or suggested it was menopause. Then, after she couldn’t get up from a chair, she went to the emergency room. The news was horrific. She had an aggressive brain tumor called a glioblastoma. She died only five weeks after her diagnosis. Alice was still in Ireland and never got to say goodbye in person.

In Fall Apart, Carry On, Alice turns her reporter’s eye inward, crafting a lyrical meditation on friendship, grief, and the challenges of soldiering on. Determined to honor the memories of her friend, she relies on the solace of storytelling to help her move through life.