ENGLISH

Last Writes: A Daybook for a Dying Friend

Book information

Publisher
Left Coast Press
Year
2007
ISBN
1598741861, 9781598741865
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
962 kB (984800 bytes)
Series
Writing Lives
Pages
176\177
Time added
2014-10-25 19:38:52

Description

Betty Frankel Kirschner succumbed to emphysema one day in June. She had been a long-term professor at Kent State University, founding member of the feminist caucus in sociology, a political activist, a chain smoker. Close friend Laurel Richardson, a key figure in literary turn in ethnographic writing, kept a daybook, relating their conversations and interactions over Betty’s last few months. Rich in memory, emotion, dreams, and life-and-death decisions, the daybook chronicles the ups and down of a terminally ill woman and the impact that illness has on friends, colleagues, and family alike. Richardson also grapples with the ethics of writing deeply personal narratives. Part memoir, part sociological analysis, part eulogy to a departed friend, Richardson opens a poignant window into living an academic life, and ending it.

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