The author has done a long of research on her
selected authors (Sontag, Sendak, Updike, among others) to depict the progress
of their deaths. Its not as morbid as it sounds. Reviews were
overwhelming positive (“meticulous”, “poetic”, “[a] meditation on
morality”). I don’t share those sentiments. While the book was
interesting reading, and I did finish it, I don’t know that it was all that
“poetic”, though it was “meticulous”. I guess it rather much depends on
whether or not you consider her subjects “great writers”. Even if I was
to concede that Dylan Thomas is in the category, I pretty much changed my mind
after reading Roiphe’s. Thomas came off as a drunken bore. Of
course, that’s merely my opinion.
Posted for Donna Riegel
321 pages
