It sounds like the plot of a novel: A best-selling author’s fabulous life is upended when she’s diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. It plays havoc with her memory, but her loving husband helps her to remember each day and she learns to live in the moment.
In fact, it’s the plot of What Does It Feel Like?, the latest book by Sophie Kinsella, author of the hit Shopaholic series of novels. It’s also the story of her life. Although it’s fiction, What Does It Feel Like? is based on what she’s been through since learning two years ago that she had a grade 4 glioblastoma tumour.
At one stage, Sophie, 55, feared she’d never be able to write again. The British novelist came round after an eight-hour operation to remove the tumour to find that she couldn’t walk, hold a pen or think straight.
She began dictating notes about what she was experiencing into her phone. They were partly to help her remember, as her short-term memory was so bad.
“I didn’t know what I would do with that material because I felt so far off writing a book. But I thought, ‘Maybe my children will feel interested one day,’” says Sophie. The author is mum to Freddy, Hugo, Oscar, Rex and Sybella, aged 28 to 12. “It was only months later when I was stronger and wanting to write again that I realised I could piece together all these notes I had made and make a story out of it.
“When your life is turned upside down, you grasp for a way to take back control. Writing What Does It Feel Like? meant I could tell it in a way that made sense to me. I could turn this event which has been horrendous into something that was hopeful and optimistic, and full of love. Because honestly, my journey has been full of love.”
Sophie, who has sold more than 48 million books around the world, first noticed something wasn’t right in 2022.
She recalls, “My legs stopped working. I started lurching around, I was stumbling and tripping. Then I was getting severe headaches. I felt very confused. But it was when I started tipping over in my chair that we realised something was very wrong.”
Her husband Henry Wickham, a former headmaster who now manages Sophie’s business affairs, realised although she’d had many tests, her head had never been scanned. A subsequent brain scan revealed the tumour.
Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive type of cancer. The average survival time is 12 to 18 months and while there is no cure, there are treatments that may be able to prolong life.
As well as having surgery, followed by extensive rehab to learn to walk again, Sophie had radiotherapy – “Tired doesn’t even begin to describe it. I felt like concrete,” – and “surreal” chemotherapy.
After keeping quiet about what she was going through for more than a year, she shared the news of her diagnosis last year.
“I’ve been waiting for the strength to do so,” she said at the time. She then went on to explain, “I wanted to make sure my children could process the news in privacy. They had to adapt to our ‘new normal’.”
Sophie was blown away by the thousands of messages of support she received. “I feel so lucky that so much love surrounds me,” she says.
She was also heartened by the response to What Does It Feel Like?, which made The New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2024.
Henry has lovingly supported her through everything, who also had to tell her the bad news that she had cancer over and over because she kept forgetting. They now have a bedtime routine where they talk about the day’s events. It helps her to remember and appreciate each day.
“Henry has been such a hero,” she shares. “I got very teary at one stage and said, ‘You didn’t sign up for this.’ And he said, ‘Yes, I did. In sickness and in health.’”
Sophie and her family deal with the knowledge that her cancer is terminal by “staying in the moment. We think, ‘Right now things are good and you can’t expect anything more than that.’ We focus on enjoying each day and not thinking about happy ever after but being happy today.
“I’ve already lasted more than the average, so that’s how we get through – we just hope.”
Every morning, Henry gets up early and trawls through the internet looking for positive stories about cancer survival, says Sophie. “He brings me a cup of tea and tells me these stories that are encouraging, and that cheers me up. I hope that I’m now someone else’s positive story of hope.”
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