Imperfect Endings: A Daughter's Tale of Life and Death
Written by Zoe FitzGerald Carter
Narrated by Karen White
4/5
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About this audiobook
Zoe and her sisters struggled to accept the imminent death of their mother, circling around the same questions: Who will help her? Will they go to jail? Can they bear to let her die alone? With a doctor prescribing lethal doses of sleep medication, a visit from a member of the Hemlock Society's "Final Exit Network," and the temptations of overdosing on morphine, the issues and people in Imperfect Endings are at the center of the debate on assisted suicide.
With echoes of bestselling grief memoirs like Elegy for Iris and The Year of Magical Thinking, Carter's memoir is the unforgettable story of a family learning to love and to let go.
Zoe FitzGerald Carter
Zoe FitzGerald Carter is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and has written for numerous publications including New York magazine, The New York Observer, Premiere, and various national magazines. Imperfect Endings is her first memoir. It won first place in the 2008 Pacific Northwest Writer's Association's literary contest and was a finalist at The San Francisco Writer's Conference. Zoe lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters.
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Reviews for Imperfect Endings
18 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5it’s a wonderful story - thank you for it
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This memoir is Zoe FitzGerald Carter's story of her mother's decision to end her life after a long decline with Parkinson's disease. Carter, a mother of 2 young children living on the west coast has to juggle the logistics of helping her mother through this difficult ordeal in Washington DC as well as the emotional roller coaster of having a mother who no longer wants to live. Although the subject matter was very interesting and I appreciate how difficult it must have been for Carter to bare her emotions in this book, I found it difficult to relate to (or even like) Carter's mother. The mother waffles on her decision of when she should end her life as well as the method. In flashbacks of Carter's childhood, her mother comes across as self-absorbed and this behavior stays with her in her plans for suicide. I did find parts of this book to be very touching, but lacking in the spirituality and closure I was hoping for with this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The topic of "euthanasia" "assisted-suicide" does not seem to be one that is tackled too often. Bravo for Zoe FitzGerald Carter. The book reflects the long, and uncertain decision that her very intelligent and emotionally clear mother has to make regarding the end of her life. She calls her children round (from all over North America) to be with her - then extends the final date several times. And the author does drag this process on in the book -- perhaps deliberately in order to transmit the sense of the Long Journey into Night. All in all an interesting read on relationships among 3 sisters; a family of some wealth, and managing motherhood in our current time, compared to the one before. "Mad Men" era. Unforgettable book, written with adequate skill.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zoe's mother, Margaret, is facing the end of her life suffering from Parkinson's disease plus a number of other maladies; she decides to end her life with her daughters' support. It is a complicated issue; Zoe and her two sisters find themselves conflicted, understanding their mother's choice while not wishing for her death. This is a thoughtful well written book on a controversial topic. Well done.