An easy five stars

Paul wrote a wonderful book, but the epilogue by his wife Lucy was devastating.

A number of chaplain and pastor friends had recommended this memoir and it was a great recommendation. Kalanithi narrates his vocational journey through degrees in literature and philosophy to become a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist, only to be struck by cancer. As the doctor "adds on" patient in his 30s, his questions about life and death and meaning remain and intensify.

The writing is exquisite, drawing from literature and history and the depths of human understanding. At several points in describing his work as a doctor and neurosurgeon, Kalanithi sounds like my colleagues in pastoral care, for example, in this piece which links to liturgical/holy space: Openness to human relationality does not mean revealing grand truths from the apse [the area behind the altar]; it means meeting patients where they are, in the narthex or nave [gathering space or primary seating space], and bringing them as far as you can (96).

In one of the poignant times of change Kalanithi draws on the words of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, "I can't go on. I'll go on" ("The Unnameable," 1954; quoted in this book, 149). How many days in how many ways is this our human condition and, thankfully, the tenacity of the human spirit?

Thanks to Kalanithi's wife Lucy , his family, and editors for seeing this book to completion after his death.

Through little fault of his own, Dr. Kalanithi struggles to rise above his illness and offer any translatable insights into the processes of death and dying. The book is very much set up as offering some conclusion, some meaning, to life -- whether in work, or in family, or in self-discovery -- but fails to stick the landing. It is interesting as a piece showing the unmoored thoughts and feelings of a dying man, but the narration that he hopes to achieve is unclear, and he struggles to offer a true conclusion, or even declare that none exists. He continues to make the same mistakes he identifies as pitfalls in the rat race of life (for example, toiling in residency to graduation even knowing that he will never truly be an attending, spending time away from family, striving for accolades separated from the joy of work itself). The best part of the book, in my opinion, was the afterword by the author's wife discussing his death, reflecting on his desires and his relationship with his family from a view not encumbered by the illness itself. The very existence of this book is intrinsically sad, and I hope that writing it gave Dr. Kalanithi some peace and closure, but it unfortunately fails to do the same for the reader.