Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary. Rebecca Brown

By Rebecca Brown

Book Overview

Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary is an intimate, exquisite, and true account of what it is to help a parent die. After her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, former home care worker... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 186207738X
• ISBN13: 9781862077386
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Granta Books
• Length: 128 Pages

Customer Reviews

The beautiful stark poetry of death

Well I have been a doctor 26 years. My sister dies when I was 20 years. This is almost poetic in its stark Hemingway style of narration of a loved mother's death. I cannot think of anyone who should not read this book. Family, love, pain, compassion, loss, and a beautiful family end.

Must read for all who have a dying loved one...

Having witnessed two in-laws passing on after terminal illnesses, I came into reading this powerful book with some experiences... but the story EXCERPTS FROM A FAMILY MEDICAL DICTIONARY moved me to tears, made me laugh (during one scene involving two sisters in the backyard) and thoroughly saturated my senses for several hours...until I was completely drained...and satisfied. BRAVO!

Greatly pleasing work on timeless themes of loss

I greatly enjoyed Rebecca Brown's work. I had the opportunity to hear Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary when the author visited our college campus in September. I found her writing to be poetic and passionate, lingering somewhere between the worlds of prose and fiction. I was greatly moved by her beautiful descriptions of pain and loss. The format of the work as a dictionary also proved interesting.