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1 Work 149 Membros 26 Críticas

About the Author

Ann Neumann is a visiting scholar at the Center for Religion and Media at New York University, where she is a contributing editor to the Revealer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Bookforum, Nation, Baffler, and Guernica. This is her first book.

Obras por Ann Neumann

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1968
Sexo
female

Membros

Críticas

Not entirely what I expected, though still compelling. And heartbreaking. I think this is a very good place to start for anyone trying to work on death acceptance. It reveals some practical knowledge, but mostly it forces the reader to face death through those who are dying, have died, and have outlasted death for now. It's not particularly uplifting, but neither is it devastating.
 
Assinalado
JessicaReadsThings | 25 outras críticas | Dec 2, 2021 |
Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing.
We are all going to die and everyone that we know and love is going to die, and it probably isn’t going to happen how we would like it to. Neumann’s book is a compelling, compassionate, and thoughtful examination of this proposition. Her discussion of what constitutes a good death (or a good enough death) is moving, and rather terrifying, but something that it would behoove all of us to think about. It is a really remarkable look at death in America.
 
Assinalado
eachurch | 25 outras críticas | Jun 11, 2017 |
In The Good Death Ann Neumann examines death in America using her experience as a caregiver for her dying father as the springboard. She succeeds in looking both pragmatically and emotionally at what death is and what it isn't.

Unlike some memoirs on the topic of death this is not written specifically just to tell one person's death and the effect it has on others. Those books are wonderful for what they are but do not even try, understandably so, to "examine" death in America but rather to illustrate through a specific instance what death was like in a particular case. They usually present broader issues when they find themselves at odds with what they think is right and what they are or are not permitted to do. To the extent that this book does that it is relatively brief and is the origin point for a broader study.

I found the mixture of straightforward presentations of views and policies juxtaposed with more emotional tales of where those policies intersect with real people going through difficult times to be quite effective and moving. Those stories become not simply one person's battle isolated from the issues but emblematic of how policies and narrowly defined viewpoints impact many people fighting the same battle.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in death in both its emotional and its societal/legal/medical aspects. If you want something a bit more like a memoir where you follow one family and the larger issues are more like background, this may disappoint you. But fear not, there are plenty of such memoirs available and they can pack quite a punch. For those wanting the heart and the mind engaged together, this book will also pack quite a punch, and perhaps irritate you at some of the policies and viewpoints thrust on people when they are suffering already.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
pomo58 | 25 outras críticas | Jun 1, 2017 |
Esta crítica foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Críticos do LibraryThing.
This was both more interesting and less... depressing than I anticipated it would be. Not a “fun” book, exactly, but Neumann handles her difficult topic with sensitivity and grace. Delving into the subject of how Americans face death, Ann Neumann opens with the story of how she and her sister tried and failed to allow her father the at-home death he wanted. This is painful and personal, and Neumann doesn't shy from graphic detail, but neither does she “wallow.” Her frustration with the failure of the hospice that was serving her father to provide them with more complete information (not to mention stronger drugs) begins her on the exploration of death related issues that makes up the rest of the book. She becomes a hospice volunteer and works with patients in a variety of settings, coming to recognize the advantages and limitations of the system. She spends time with activists, and patients involved in the “aid in dying” movement, and examines the political and religious aspects of the opposition to this option. Looking at cases such as Terri Schiavo's, Nancy Cruzan's, and Jahi McMath's, she presents the debate over lengthy use of life support measures for patients ruled to be brain dead, and she points out ways in which DNR orders and living wills may be disregarded depending on issues outside the patient's control. In a chapter that was particularly eye-opening for me, she looks at death in America's prison system. The ending of this chapter, “Dying Inside,” was a little jarring, but also very honest – she admits that she's uncomfortable with the prisoner she visits, and is not sorry that the prison won't let her send him letters. I was shocked, though, to learn the extent to which the policies of our prison system are influenced by the large corporations that profit from them. But, back to death...

The book ends on a surprisingly life affirming note. Neumann forms a strong friendship with a hospice patient who far outlives the six month guideline, and her relationship with the woman and her family helps her come to terms with her father's difficult end. She says...
”There is no good death, I now know. It always hurts, both the dying and the left behind. But there is a good enough death. It is possible to look it in the face, to know how it will come, to accept its inevitability. Knowing death makes facing it bearable. There are many kinds of good enough death, each specific to the person dying. As they wish, as best they can. And there is really one kind of bad death, characterized by the same bad facts: pain, denial, prolongation, loneliness.”


I'm glad I read this. The political, social, and religious issues involved are ones that we as a nation need to address thoughtfully and seriously, weighing various issues of compassion and dignity, hope and suffering, which Neumann explores from a wide variety of perspectives.

I received this book from LibraryThing through their Early Reviewers program with the understanding that the content of my review would not affect my likelihood of receiving books through the program in the future. Many thanks to Beacon Press, Ann Neumann, and LibraryThing!
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
meandmybooks | 25 outras críticas | Apr 29, 2017 |

Estatísticas

Obras
1
Membros
149
Popularidade
#139,413
Avaliação
4.1
Críticas
26
ISBN
3

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