Aged just 29, gifted, athletic and loved, Lu Spinney's son Miles was on the brink of a brilliant future. Then a snowboarding accident changed everything. He suffered a devastating head injury and was left in a coma.

With unflinching honesty, Lu has written a passionate, urgent account of the years following Miles's accident, revealing his existence imprisoned in a limbo of fluctuating consciousness, at times agonizingly aware of his predicament. Beyond the High Blue Air explores the nature of self when all means of communication are lost, the anguish of witnessing Miles's suffering and the slow-dawning recognition by his family that, though Miles had been prevented from dying, he had not been brought back to a meaningful life. Beyond the High Blue Air is a bold, raw, courageous memoir: a testament to the fierce power of maternal love.