My Glory Was I Had Such Friends

Amy Silverstein tells a once-in-a-lifetime story about the power of friendship and the resilience of the human spirit. Soon to be a new TV-series produced by JJ Abrams.

We were grown daughters all, some mothers of high school or college kids, a few of us seasoned career women. We had become our middle-aged selves. Our wisest, steadiest, most powerful selves yet. And we discovered a new best in ourselves together because I was dying, really dying this time, and we weren’t twenty-five anymore.

A potent reminder of the importance of imperfect friends, for loving them for whoever they are…Silverstein proved her writing mettle…She seamlessly knits several important issues into one compelling package.
USA TODAY

My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is, at its core, a book about friendship. Silverstein spares no words honestly describing the endless emotions she felt when friends from work, childhood and her community walked alongside her as she waited for a heart…
ASSOCIATED PRESS

An inspiring, heart-warming memoir… Amazing… You can wait for the movie or grab some hankies and start crying now.
HUFFINGTON POST

This riveting account of what Amy endured—and how her friends supported her—illuminates the power of friendship, for all of us.
NYT BESTSELLING AUTHOR GRETCHEN RUBIN

If it were fiction, you’d dismiss it as over the top: Multiple devoted women collaborating in an emotional, cross-country support relay, struggling to keep an exhausted friend alive… An endless wait leads to a medical miracle that makes it all worthwhile. But here’s the kicker: It’s all true, and it’s beautifully written, too.
—TED KOPPEL

There’s a special air around crisis that makes true intimacy possible in ways that daily life rarely does. Amy Silverstein has tapped into that moment with a cast of women who will make you pine for your nearest and dearest.
NYT BESTSELLING AUTHOR KELLY CORRIGAN

About Amy

Author, attorney, and speaker Amy Silverstein was a vibrant, energetic 24-year-old student at NYU law, when she learned she had a failing heart; suddenly, it was heart transplant or die. Her first book, Sick Girl, published in three languages, is a bold, unforgettable self-portrait and a keenly observed, wryly humorous look at life-threatening challenges that won a “Books for a Better Life Award” and was a finalist for the Border’s Original Voices Award. She has written articles for SELF, Prevention, and Glamour magazines and for medical journals including the American Journal of Transplantation and the Transplant Infectious Disease Journal. Her remarkable, intimate memoir, My Glory Was I Had Such Friends, is soon to be a new TV-series.

New York Times
Guest Essay
My Transplanted Heart and I Will Die Soon
April 18, 2023
“Today, I will explain to my healthy transplanted heart why, in what may be a matter of days or weeks at best, she — well, we — will die.”
Read the full article

CBS Sunday Morning

“Amy Silverstein on improving organ donor drug regimens”
CBS Sunday Morning, April 23, 2023