cover image One in a Million

One in a Million

Harry Alexander Cole. Little Brown and Company, $18.45 (276pp) ISBN 978-0-316-15117-7

How one family coped with the ``right-to-die'' issue is detailed in this graphic account by Cole, husband of a stroke victim, writing with freelancer Jablow. For 47 days in 1986, Jacqueline Cole, 43-year-old mother of four, lay in a deep coma induced by a cerebral hemorrhage. Her husband, a Presbyterian minister, kept vigil in a Baltimore hospital, along with his stepchildren, friends and parishioners. We are made privy to his agony over less than harmonious aspects of his marriage, his interchanges with a seemingly distant God, and his dilemma with the ethics of withdrawing life support systems when chances for recovery are, as his wife's were deemed, ``one in a million.'' Her emergence from coma made court intervention moot, but has not changed the couple's view about an individual's right to determine treatment. The ``as-told-to'' tenor of the narration detracts from what is otherwise a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of a controversial issue. (Feb.)