At the End of Life : True Stories about How We Die

The modern healthcare system has become proficient at staving off death with aggressive interventions. And yet, eventually everyone dies ù and although most Americans say they would prefer to die peacefully at home, more than half of all deaths take place in hospitals or health care facilities. At the End of Life tackles this conundrum head on. These twenty-two compelling personal-medical narratives explore death, dying and palliative care, and reveal the inner workings of a system in which doctors, patients and their loved ones battle to hang on ù and to let go. Book jacket.

Editor Lee Gutkind has been exploring the world of medicine through writing for over 20 years. He is the author of Many Sleepless Nights: The World of Organ Transplantation, and the editor of four anthologies about health and medicine: Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives; Rage and Reconciliation: Inspiring a Health Care Revolution; Healing; and Becoming a Doctor. He is the founder and editor of the magazine Creative Nonfiction, the first and largest literary journal to exclusively publish nonfiction, and has also published the essay collection Forever Fat and two books on writing, The Art of Creative Nonfiction and Keep It Real, among other titles. Gutkind currently teaches creative writing at Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes. Francine Prose is a literary critic and author whose nonfiction works include Reading Like a Writer and biographical profiles including Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife and The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired. She has also written 12 novels, including My New American Life, Touch, and the National Book Award finalist Blue Angel. Prose is the president of the PEN American Center, and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.