Downhill: A Memoir of an Accident, Two Comas, Many Books, and Starting Over

"Juana Libedinsky's account of her husband's ski accident and coma is wrenching, suspenseful, and sometimes even funny. Plunged into the world of coma care, with two small children in tow, she becomes part guardian angel, part sex bomb, part reading and tennis obsessive. Downhill is a gripping true story of grit, terror, and-ultimately-of love." --Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing Up Bébé and The Monogamy Prize

A bookish memoir about barreling through (ridiculously) hard times

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.

At times breathless in its intensity, at others quietly contemplative, and often disarmingly funny, Downhill is, at its core, a love story: to a husband, to two children, to books--and to the stubborn, slightly irrational belief that things will, somehow, be okay.

Author: Juana Libedinsky
Publisher: Urano Publishing
Published: 09/22/2026
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9781953027580

About the Author
Juana Libedinsky is an Argentine writer and journalist based in New York. A longtime columnist for La Nación in Argentina and cultural correspondent for El País in Uruguay, she has also written for publications including Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveler, ForbesWomen and La Vanguardia in Spain. She is the author of widely acclaimed books in Spanish.

Downhill, adapted from Cuesta Abajo--hailed by the press as "unputdownable"--is her first book in English. She is a graduate of NYU's Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program, where she was an Arthur L. Carter Fellow, and a former Wolfson Press Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She teaches cultural journalism at the Universidad San Pablo CEU in Madrid.