For as long as he can remember, Will Schwalbe’s mother has been almost a super-human figure. She was Harvard’s first female director of admissions, then later the founding director of International Rescue Committee’s Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. Nothing could slow Mary Anne Schwalbe down, except stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Even cancer didn’t slow Will’s mother down as much as it would most people. Still, though, there were those periods of enforced rest, the doctor appointments, the chemotherapy treatments. Will is lucky enough to have the flexibility and proximity to attend many of his mother’s appointments with her. When they are together, the conversation frequently defaults to the same thing it has throughout their lives: books.
The End of Your Life Book Club is as much – or more – about Mary Anne’s life with and death from cancer than about the books that the two read together. It is a chronicle of the last months of her life, a testament to her strength, and Will’s coming to terms with the way his family’s life will be forever changed.
This is an emotional book, and yet I personally failed to connect to it emotionally. I believe that this has more to do with the circumstances – I started it immediately on the heels of another extremely emotional book which also dealt with hospitals and death and I believe I was just wrung out. Honestly, I also thought that the books themselves would be a bigger and more integrated part of Schwalbe’s story.
Although each chapter is given the title of the book they read at that point in time, the books themselves are discussed to varying degrees and do not always seem particularly important to what they are going through. I do appreciate that Schwalbe is trying to be faithful to what actually happened and it would be disingenuous at best to make individual books seem more important to this process than they were. I suppose the difference is that I was expecting more about how the specific books helped the Schwalbe family cope and The End of Your Life Book Club is more about how the process of reading brought comfort to Will and Mary Anne during Mary Anne’s illness.
People who have dealt with the terminal illness of a loved one will likely find much to connect with in The End of Your Life Book Club, even though I personally did not.
I know we are discussing this tomorrow, so I will keep this comment short and sweet: I also enjoyed the book but had a difficult time connecting emotionally with any of it. The memoir made me want to call my mom and tell her I’m proud of her, and I did think of appreciating my own family more. But I think the constant listing of books drew me away from the story and more into thinking about adding to my own book list, to be honest.
I keep going back and forth on whether to read this book. On the one hand, it’s about books! On the other hand, after being a caregiver of dying family members too many times now, I’m a bit afraid that I’ll end up in a pit of depression thinking about them all. Perhaps in a few more years I’ll be more called to this book.
Schwalbe’s experiences are sad but not depressing, but if you’ve had seriously depressing experiences yourself I could definitely see that.
I think I’ll pass on this one. The subject is too emotional.