In a pandemic-hushed city, a young doctor lives a life of insecure attachments. Through a yearlong fellowship caring for the dying and their families, death is impossible to ignore, and still more endings loom at every turn – endings made worse by wounded, avoidant doctors who don't know how to let go. But after the sudden loss of a long-estranged father, our unnamed narrator's work is thrown into painful relief, and we see how far we will go to hold on to our lives – no matter how little we live them.
Gripping but grim ... DeForest has created a bleak yet powerful account of the toll of dying on family members and health professionals who care for the almost-dead.
DeForest, themself a palliative care physician, has delivered less an immersive storyline, more a meditation on both life and death leavened by occasional sardonic humor. Short, dark, stylish, sui generis. An idiosyncratic form of fiction, stimulating yet not entirely satisfying.
Ruminative if underdeveloped ... Without a plot or much character development, readers may have a tough time becoming emotionally invested. Still, DeForest draws from their own experience as a palliative care doctor to write with acute perception about the thin membrane that separates life from death.
