cover image Signs of Life:: A Memoir of Dying and Discovery

Signs of Life:: A Memoir of Dying and Discovery

Tim Brookes. Crown Publishers, $23 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-8129-2468-8

Freelance journalist Brookes (Catching My Breath: An Asthmatic Explores His Illness) had begun an investigation into the growing hospice movement, which advocates alleviating pain and involving patients in their own dying process, when he learned that his mother, who lived in England, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although he reports here on his mainly positive view of hospice care, he interweaves his impressions with a haunting account of how he, his brother and two sisters (also in England) coped with their mother's illness. Brookes brings his mother's strong, independent spirit to life and vividly describes how dealing with her impending death brought problems as well as a renewed intimacy to their relationship on the two occasions he flew to England to visit her. The family dynamics among the siblings demonstrate how people cope very differently with grief. Brookes presents an effective argument against the societal denial of death and praises the hospice movement for giving the dying both control and comfort. Author tour. (Mar.)