Review: Swimming in a Sea of Death by David Rieff and Final Exam by Pauline Chen

Today, in January Magazine’s biography section, contributing editor Diane Leach reviews Swimming in a Sea of Death by David Rieff and Final Exam by Pauline Chen. Says Leach:

Reading two memoirs about death within two days, whilst bedridden from chronic illness arguably isn’t an effective method for rapid recuperation. The reader may instead extrapolate her readings to her own (momentarily) failing body, or find so much pain, both within and without, unbearable. But Rieff and Chen’s books are such fine contributions, so beautifully, movingly written, that they did what great books do best: they made me forget myself.

Rieff is Susan Sontag’s son. His memoir of her final battle with the cancer is eloquent, elegant and pained. Three years after the death of one of our great intellectuals, her son remains in a state of deep, guilty grief. His is not a year of magical thinking; it is a lifetime ration, and we can only hope writing this book gave him some solace.

While Pauline Chen’s Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality…

… shifts the perspective from family member to doctor. Like Rieff, Chen faces death uneasily, casting about for the right words, the right gestures, the right decisions. But where Rieff is unable to draw meaningful conclusions, Pauline Chen is more fortunate. A surgeon specializing in oncology and liver transplants, her memoir examines the ways the medical profession and its practitioners are taught to manage -- or not -- the lives and deaths of their patients.

The full reviews are here.