Let's Talk About Death

September 21, 2015
The epistolary construction of this book demonstrates by example that death is a subject best approached through dialogue. Coauthors Gordon and Kacandes, respectively a massage therapist and a college professor, present nearly four years of email correspondence on a topic that is, in modern society, often considered taboo. Conversational in tone, their exchanges—which touch on caregiving, medications, and the right to die, among other things—should be more relatable for the average reader than the usual medical or political discourse about these topics. At times, the emails seem to have undergone too much editing after the fact, disrupting the sense of an authentic conversation taking place. The genuine investment of both authors, however, is always evident; readers receive a sense of their personal experiences with mortality throughout, from an opening reference to the unsolved murders of two of Kacandes’s fellow Dartmouth professors in 2001, to her own closing confrontation with cancer. Though this is not the first book to seek for factual information, it warmly meets common end-of-life fears with, at the very least, the reassurance that one is not alone. Agent: Nancy Rosenfeld, AAA Books Unlimited.

October 1, 2015

Gordon, a former journalist, and Kacandes (German studies & comparative literature, Dartmouth Coll.; Daddy's War) met as a result of the violent deaths of Kacandes's close friends--fellow college professors murdered in their home. Her tribute to their lives and ongoing attempts to come to terms with their senseless deaths became the catalyst for a correspondence and friendship with Gordon, who founded the Hand to Heart Project in a mid-career shift from journalism to massage therapy, which he freely provides to advanced cancer patients. They explore their own deeply experienced grief, questions and contexts of mortality, illness, and how best to live and die from different but complementary perspectives in an email exchange over almost four years. She is a practicing Eastern Orthodox Christian who has given much thought to trauma, sudden death, and preparation for dying; he professes greater uncertainty about the afterlife, but practices a Buddhist approach to compassion, acceptance, and end-of-life care. VERDICT For readers interested in all aspects of death, from the practical to the theological: the afterlife, grieving, illness, caregiving, sudden death, and funeral decisions. In spite of its somber theme, this gracious exchange by two friends emphasizes living with gratitude and talking openly about death as the best preparation for final things.--Bernadette McGrath, Vancouver Pub. Lib.

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