| Sociologist and scholar Ernest Becker was just 49 when he died of cancer. He’d lived to see the publication of his seminal work “Denial of Death” but not to witness the honor of winning a Pulitzer Prize. Becker’s book came out 50 years ago and one critic said it was a year of a “death renaissance.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s book, “On Death and Dying” had come out four years earlier and had stimulated a national conversation about death. There were books about dying from a physician, a journalist and a book titled, “Vital Signs” by John Langone that included details about how the human body is dissected. Becker’s book was hailed as “electric” and “original” and more philosophical. He counseled an approach of curiosity, not fear. Kubler-Ross, Becker and others started a vibrant discussion of mortality that has been resurgent five decades later and I’ve chosen two more contemporary books about death that are must-reads. Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” is exceptional. As a surgeon, Gawande recounts conversations with patients for whom treatment is no longer viable yet they are determined to fight on. He introduces us to the wrenching case of a 34-year-old pregnant woman who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and he writes about his father who is facing his death. He confides that as a newly minted physician he had nightmares about death in which he’d find his parents’ bodies in his own bed. It would take years before he’d fully accept that, “death is normal ... the natural order of things.” Another must-read about dying is a novel by Nellie Hermann titled, “The Cure for Grief,” published in 2008. We meet Ruby, the youngest daughter of a quiet, self-effacing mother and a father who survived the Holocaust. Ruby is 10 when her father and then her favorite brother are diagnosed with cancer and we follow her into the delights and disappointments of adolescence even as her family falls apart. Hermann’s writing is subtle and beautiful and if you have a family book club, this book would ignite a meaningful discussion.
— Kerri Miller | MPR News | 