Getting to Know Death could just as easily be called Getting to Know Life. As a meditation, it is both unsentimental and full of wonder. As a piece of writing, it stands beside the best of Godwin's fiction. Extraordinary.” —Ann Patchett
“Old friends now, Gail Godwin and I met as students in Kurt Vonnegut's writing class. With insightful reflection, as she prepares herself for the inevitable, Gail has recalled the loved ones she's lost-in the same crystalline prose that distinguishes her fiction. This book makes me remember the loved ones I've lost, in all the good ways. I wrote Gail that I especially loved the part about the man who thought she was a nun. He just mistook her dedication to writing for a different kind of devotion-one that also requires sacrifice.” —John Irving
“A powerful and poetic reflection on death, dying, and what constitutes a good life . . . Throughout, [Godwin's] tone is curious and vaguely wonderstruck, resulting in an account that's full of insight and free of platitude. This is a gift.” —Publishers Weekly
“Godwin makes for good company, and the text sparkles with flashes of insight and humor. A tart, mordantly witty glimpse at losses past, as well as those to come.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Godwin's latest book explores two great themes, love and loss. She writes about her extraordinary friend Pat and her many family members, including her partner, who have died. And she writes with courage and honesty about her own suffering at 86. Moving through life's journey, I look for role models for how to best live in each life stage. Godwin is now a role model for me.” —Mary Pipher
“Like everything the marvelous Gail Godwin writes, her meditation on mortality is vigorous, erudite, sharply witty, and deeply pleasurable. Getting to Know Death is brimming with life.” —Hilma Wolitzer
“Getting to Know Death may be the most uplifting, riveting book about 'death' you'll ever read-probably because it's actually about life, work, friendships, and love. Beautifully written, it also provides, directly and indirectly, insights about aging that can help us all live better now and through old age.” —Louise Aronson, Pulitzer finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Elderhood
“Godwin's volume proves the lasting power of the writer, deploying her skill as a weapon, even while staring down death.” —Chronogram
“Getting to Know Death is full of grace and humor, memories of friends and people Godwin has outlived . . . If Godwin felt any despair during her recovery it was displaced by her endless curiosity . . . Her creative mind still skips and leaps, pirouetting from present to past, from people and books that have influenced her to the novel she's in the process of writing.” —California Review of Books
“As always, wry, beadyeyed, acute.” —Margaret Atwood on OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS
“An extraordinary novel about the nature of those rare friendships that fade for long periods of time to only rekindle in an instant when the conditions are right again.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post, on OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS
“Powerful, moving, and perfectly crafted . . . virtuoso dialogue and masterful handling of the passage of time.” —John Irving on OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS
“Shimmeringly alive . . . gorgeous, heartbreakingly true, and profound . . . To say it's a masterpiece is an understatement.” —Caroline Leavitt on OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS
2024-04-19
The veteran novelist looks with a clear eye at her declining health and the loss of many of those she has loved.
In the summer of 2022, just before her 85th birthday, Godwin, a three-time nominee for the National Book Award, went out to water the dogwood tree in her garden, slipped on the gravel, and fell and broke her neck. Confined to a rehabilitation facility for a few weeks, she had to wear a neck brace for six months; when that didn't work, she underwent partially successful neck surgery. The period gave her plenty of time to reflect on her past and observe her present. In fragmented passages, organized in no evident pattern, the author reflects on her long friendship with a woman who died in 2021; the deaths by suicide of her father and brother; the tentative friendship she formed with her roommates at the rehabilitation facility; the loss of her husband two decades earlier; experiences of despair; a friendship with the home health aide who helped her after her release from the rehab center; and her less-than-cordial interactions with her blunt doctor, who told her, “You have too many issues for surgery”—and then, reluctantly and grumpily, changed his mind. Because much of the narrative revolves around the relationship between incidents in Godwin’s life and the ways in which she transformed them into parts of her many novels—and takes for granted that readers will be familiar with those novels—the book will be best suited for those already acquainted with the author’s work. While those looking for a coherent narrative or a tidy conclusion will be disappointed, Godwin makes for good company, and the text sparkles with flashes of insight and humor.
A tart, mordantly witty glimpse at losses past, as well as those to come.