Summary:
Australian writer Cory Taylor was diagnosed with untreatable
melanoma at the age of 60. In a few
short weeks she wrote this memoir, exploring what she was feeling and what is
missing in modern medical care of the dying. She died at the age of 61, a few months after this book appeared in her
native country.
The book has three parts. Part I, Cold Feet, starts right off discussing a euthanasia drug
purchased online from China. Taylor’s melanoma has metastasized to many parts
of her body, including her brain. It was first diagnosed in 2005, a malignant
mole behind her right knee. In the decade of her cancer, she has tried three
drug trials, thought about suicide, and received palliative care. She has harsh
words for doctors who don’t mention death, a psychologist who doesn’t help her
“Adjustment disorder,” and medicine in general that sees death as a failure.
Taylor feels anger, sadness, and loneliness. She finds
comfort and camaraderie in a group called Exit, where there’s frank discussion
about death. She writes, “We’re like the last survivors on a sinking ship,
huddled together for warmth” (p. 14). She has neither religious training nor
interest in it. She became a writer late in life, and now she sees a clear
purpose for her “final book.” She writes, “I am making a shape for my death, so
that I, and others can see it clearly. And I am making it bearable for myself”
(p. 31).
Although scared and suffering, she is reluctant to commit
suicide because of the impact on her husband, two sons, and friends. Dying, she
writes, “is by far the hardest thing I have ever done, and I will be glad when
it’s over” (p. 49).
Part II, Dust and Ashes, describes her earlier life with her
mother and father. Her parents were unhappy together and eventually divorced.
In her life review, Taylor searches for meaning in the influences on her life.
Her family moved often in Australia, also to Fiji and Africa. She feels
rootless herself, traveling to England and Japan. Both of her parents die with
dementia; she was with neither one at their ends.
Part III, Endings and Beginnings, goes further back to her
childhood. She reflects on an idyllic time in Fiji, her discovery of the power
of language and writing, and various trials of growing up. She worries that she
wasn’t vigilant enough in checking her skin, thereby allowing her disease to
become fatal. She feels autonomy in having the Chinese euthanasia drug, but her
life is clearly closing in. She says she weighs less than her neighbor’s dog. The
last page of the book imagines her death as a cinematic montage, ending with
“Fade to black” (p. 141).
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