"Ordinary Life" is an unsparing portrait of one women's experience of living through three cancers, from diagnosis through treatment and on to recovery. Instead of the usual self-help book that portrays illness as a transformative experience in which the individual ultimately prevails physically, spiritually, and socially, "Ordinary Life" isn't afraid to inhabit and explore the night-mare world of human emotion when it is confronted with life-threatening disease. Kathlyn Conway shows all sides of her reaction to a deadly illness. Often she is despairing, angry, lonely, terrified, and raging against her disease and its implications. Here is a journey to the heart of darkness into which illness can take any human. Yet, Conway's very act of courage and honesty in exposing her fear reveal how normal such feelings are.