North on 101
A memoir by Anne Starr
North on 101 by Anne Starr is an achingly intimate memoir of two siblings bound by love—and ultimately by loss. When Anne’s brother, Mansfield, is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she travels across the country to be by his side, drawn by an unspoken summons she can’t refuse. What she finds is a world reduced to a single bedroom, painkillers, and fragile hopes—yet illuminated by small, precious moments of humor and tenderness.
As Mansfield’s health deteriorates, the siblings grapple with their shared history, from the eccentricities of their parents to childhood memories both cherished and haunting. Anne’s struggle for control over the uncontrollable—her brother’s relentless decline—echoes in every quiet routine, every unexpected burst of laughter, and every story they invent to keep despair at bay. Wrenching and luminous, North on 101 offers a profound exploration of what it means to face death with courage and love, discovering along the way the extraordinary intimacy that can blossom in life’s most unthinkable moments.
A profound journey through a beloved brother's illness and death, told by a brilliant writer. I have never read such an acutely rendered and loving portrait, or such a generous and astute reckoning with love and loss. Starr's language is pitch-perfect and gorgeous. I will not forget these people, or this profoundly beautiful book.
— Meredith Hall, Beneficence and Without a Map
What struck me over and over again, as I read Anne Starr’s memoir, is how much life there is contained in these absorbing pages. And no one is more alive than Mansfield who, even in his last days, keeps saying YES! North on 101 is a beautiful and compelling account of Mansfield’s life as a brother and an artist, and of the devoted sister who responds to his summons.
— Margot Livesey, The Road from Belhaven
A sister’s poignant memoir of an older brother: their childhood together, his move to sixties San Francisco - then, suddenly, a mid-life call to help him to navigate the ravages of cancer. An impressive account of life - and death
— Eileen Christelow, Five Little Monkeys series
Anne Starr's love and admiration for her brother and the intensity of her desire to understand herself are palpable in her persistent questioning and analyzing of not just the situation at hand, but also as she investigates the rich bank of memories that surface as a result of the intimacy the situation demands.
—Mary Bonina, My Father’s Eyes: A Memoir
Paradoxically life-affirming, Anne Starr’s memoir about caring for her slowly dying brother in the final months of his life is beautifully and sensitively written. She shares her own sense of inadequacy in the face of his imminent death as well as painting a colorful portrait of a man who had always been bursting with life. I came away from it touched by the poignancy of witnessing the end of a life, especially a life lived so energetically and joyfully.
— Lawrence Kessenich, The Further Adventures of Daisy Miller
With growing and pained self-awareness, Anne Starr chronicles the life, cancer diagnosis, and death of her beloved brother. Too often we turn away from death, but Starr turns toward the light. North on 101 is a beautiful, devastating, and heart-wrenching treatise of faith: in family, in life, in death.
— Catherine Parnell, The Kingdom of His Will
Anne Starr reveals the history that set her in motion to care for her beloved brother Mansfield as he is ravaged by cancer. With intricacy and passion, she describes the infinite doors that open and close in life, until the path narrows and leaves only one more opening, and then, the close. Anne's lionhearted prose broke my heart: her writing is vivid, tenacious and an expression of our greatest emotion—love.
-Cliff Hakim, Walk In My Shoes, The Path to Empathy and Compassion
Anne Starr offers a nuanced and poignant portrait of her beloved brother from the vantage point of caring for him during last days. In so doing she reveals herself to be as brilliant and complex a character as her intriguing brother.
- Grady McGonagill
North on 101 is a heart-warming testament to a sister's love for her brother as he is dying of cancer. Anne Starr does not shy away from the countless challenges and moments of doubt that arise on this journey. She is a beautiful writer, and her insights and candor will serve all of us experiencing suffering and loss.
—Susanne Cook-Greuter
Anne Starr has written a small, beautiful, heart-breaking memoir about the her older brother, Mansfield, who came of age in the early San Francisco counterculture. Shared memories serve as counterpoint to Mansfield's vivid family of choice, who rally again and again to his support with love, grace and humor. We join them in this universal journey, told through the unique voice of her "infinitely calibrated self-consciousness."
—William R. Torbert, Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership
A compelling evocation of the living-dying 'in between' Anne Starr shared with her terminally ill brother, North on 101 deploys the intense present of this intermediary space into a concentrate of unflinching self-observations, rich portrayals and moving memory gems.
'A world goes inside out' — indeed, and this exquisitely crafted world gifts us with the poignant complexities and delicate complicities of a sister-brother bond.
—Monique Pommier, Ph.D. Harmony, The Heartbeat of Creation
Anne Starr has been a friend and trusted partner for many decades. So, i t does not surprise me that she can be a trustworthy guide on such an intimate journey, one that we are all on, whether we recognize it or not.
- Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline and Presence
A compelling and powerful tribute to a life. A tribute to the steadfast love of a sister for a brother. North on 101 will leave the reader with gratitude that such love exists and can soften the passing of a soul. Deeply moving.
— Christine Breen, Her Name is Rose
About Anne
Anne Starr spent her childhood in Michigan, Vermont and Ontario. Her professional writing has appeared in Integral Review, Springer Publishing, and Emergent Learning case studies, and MIT newsletter. Her “Evening” was nominated for Best Microfiction 2023 Anthology. She holds an MBA from Simmons College.
photo by Sharona Jacobs