Invention of Dying, The

Brooke Biaz

Description

A doctor, her bats, some remote islands, their expectant people: THE INVENTION OF DYING is a novel about human curiosity and reinvention; an exploration of the arrival of medicine where medicine has never been before, the discovery of possibilities for bright new life when confronted with the darkness of our own mortality. The Invention of Dying is all about the taming of death, one bold living day at a time. | “THE INVENTION OF DYING hums with a rare verbal and narrative energy. This is a book that will take you to places both real and imaginary that you’ve never been before. Its range is encyclopedic and the great comic spirit of Brooke Biaz is never far away.” —Jon Cook, Professor of Literature & Director of the Centre of Creative & Performing Arts at the University of East Anglia | “Brooke Biaz here presents a cleverly and even musically worded game, that plays with the relationship between medicine and death. In a day when perfectly healthy people are regularly made miserable by being told that they have “risk factors” and require intense, burdensome medical surveillance to ward off death—a death that will come eventually regardless—a way to shake up some of our ideas about the role of medicine, and even to imagine what life might be like without doctors or hospitals, is very timely.” | —Howard Brody, John P. McGovern Centennial Chair and Director, Institute for the Medical Humanities, The University of Texas Medical Branch |

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781602355408
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

BIAZ THE INVENTION THE INVENTION of DYING

of DYING

arlor Press

a novel

BROOKE BIAZ

The Invention of Dying

by the same author

Small Maps of the World

Moon Dance

Camera Phone

The Invention of Dying

Brooke Biaz

Parlor Press Anderson, South Carolina www.parlorpress.com

Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, USA

© 2015 by Parlor Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America

S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Biaz, Brooke.  The invention of dying / Brooke Biaz. -- First edition.  1 online resource.  Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.  ISBN 978-1-60235-540-8 (pdf) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-541-5 (epub) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-542-2 ( ibook) -- ISBN 978-1-60235- 543-9 (mobi) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-539-2 (softcover : acid-free paper) 1. Death--Psychological aspects--Fiction. 2. Women physicians-- Fiction. 3. Fear of death--Fiction. 4. Medical fiction. I. Title.  PR9619.3.H324  823’.914--dc23  2015020856

Cover image by David Marcu. From Unsplash. Used by permission. Cover design by Lea Anna Cardwell. Printed on acid-free paper. 1 2 3 4 5 First Edition

Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper and digital formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and- mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, SC 29621, or e-mail [e-mail].

To the Faculty and Staff of the Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas

Contents

Acknowledgments to the Deceased xi Our Story3 1a. The Facts About Dying 5 1b. 1971: Dying and Love Go Hand in Hand 7 1c. By the Chin 32 2a. The Conception, Birth and Life of Death 36 2b. Certain Sounds 44 Waiting, 2012 48 Our New Cemetery 53 Death’s Arrival I 62 Death Rides Again 68 Five Final Hats 72 Death’s Story83 A Note on Albert Einstein’s Brain 85 A Nurse Considers Patients 90 Death’s Story100 Making the Hospital 101 A Treatise on Doctors Not Found in The Communion Islands 114 Holoquet, The Anka River, The Communion Islands 120 Our Story127 Still in Search 128 Death’s Story133 Firstly, At the Beginning 134 These Young Islands 139 Outgoing Mail 148 And Now a Doctor for The Communion Islands 153 Me: Alternatively 157 What a Women Looks Like When She Finally Turns Up 169 A New Doctor in a New Town 176

Vital Acknowledgments About the Images About the Author

 185 187 193

viii

BROOKE BIAZ

Figure 1.

“I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.”

—Modern Hippocratic Oath

Nunc scio quid sit Amor

—Virgil

ix

T HE I N V EN T ION OF DY I NG