How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey's Anatomy

THENEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER

The first inside story of one of TV's most popular and beloved dramas,Grey's Anatomy.

More than fifteen years after its premiere,Greys Anatomyremains one of the most beloved dramas on television and ABC's most important property. It typically wins its time slot and has ranked in the Top 20 most-watched shows in primetime for most of its seventeen-season run. It currently averages more than eight million viewers each week.

Beyond that, its been a cultural touchstone. It introduced the unique voice and vision of Shonda Rhimes; it made Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh and T.R. Knight household names; and injected words and phrases into the cultural lexicon, such as McDreamy, seriously, and youre my person. And the behind-the-scenes drama has always been just as juicy as what was happening in front of the camera, from the controversial departure of Isaiah Washington to Katherine Heigls fall from grace and Patrick Dempsey's shocking death episode. The show continued to hemorrhage key players, but the beloved hospital series never skipped a beat.

Lynette Rice'sHow to Save A Lifetakes a totally unauthorized deep dive into the shows humble start, while offering exclusive intel on the behind-the-scenes culture, the most heartbreaking departures and the more polarizing plotlines. This exhaustively enthusiastic book is one that noGreys Anatomyfan should be without.

Authors Note
Cast of Characters
1 Pick Me, Choose Me, Love Me, or, How It All Began
2 The Fairy Tale May Be Slightly Different Than You Dreamed, or, Working with an Ensemble
3 You Give Them Someone to Run To, or, The Care and Feeding of Fans and Media
4 Hes Gone. Im Free, or, How Isaiah Washington Brought Shame to Seattle Grace
Interlude: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol
5 I Need a Reason to Get Up Every Morning, or, How Addison Montgomery Kicked Off the Spin- offs
6 You Fought. You Loved. You Lost, or, A Look Back at Some of the Most Polarizing Relationships on the Show
7 Theres an End to Every Storm, or, How Katherine Heigl Went from Famous to Downright Infamous
Interlude: How to Save a Life by the Fray
8 Hes Very Dreamy, but Hes Not the Sun, or, How Greys Anatomy LovedThen
Learned to Live WithoutPatrick Dempsey
9 Its a Beautiful Day to Save Lives, or, The Guest Stars Who Survived and Some Who Didnt
10 Somebody Sedate Me, or, How Greys Anatomy Managed to Gross You Out
11 Not Everyone Has to Be Happy All the Time. That Isnt Mental Health. Thats Crap, or, Eleven of the Most Memorable Episodes of Greys Anatomy
12 Trauma Always Leaves a Scar, or, The Most Heartbreaking Departures and Deaths . . .
Interlude: Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson
13 We Have to Keep Reinventing Ourselves, Almost Every Minute, Because the World Can Change in an Instant, or, How Shonda Rhimes and Ellen Pompeo Became the Highest-Paid
Women in Television
14 Everybody Wants Their Place in History, or, Deciding When to Hang Up the Scrubs
Entertainment Weekly Sources
Acknowledgments
Index