PositiveThe Cleveland Plain DealerDeath comes slowly. Death comes swiftly. It comes with varying degrees of pain. It awaits us with certainty yet leaves us struggling to comprehend the point of what came before it and what will follow ... The memoir, his [Giffels's] third, began as an attempt to settle the great casket debate once and for all ... Giffels recounts working on it [a casket] with his father, a man whose arms are now loose and scaly - arms that Giffels remembers as once being muscular, back when he would watch him in that workshop as child ... Nail by nail and plank by plank a story started taking shape. Yes, about a son and a father and also a coffin, but also about tthe next stage - in life and in Giffels' literary career ... Furnishing Eternity bears witness to the second half of the life cycle: Here the adult son ponders the time he has left with his parents before he enters the role of family elder.
