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Zoe Carter's wrenching memoir about a family coming to terms with the mother's plan, after a long and difficult illness, to commit suicide.
Simon & Schuster
March 2010
On Sale: March 2, 2010
272 pages ISBN: 1439148244 EAN: 9781439148242 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Zoe Carter's busy life on the West Coast with her husband
and daughters takes an unexpected detour when her glamorous,
independent-minded mother, Margaret, decides she wants to
"end things." Tired of living with Parkinson's disease,
Margaret declares she is no longer willing to go where the
illness is taking her. Unsure how -- or when -- she will end
her life, she is certain of one thing: she wants her three
daughters there when she does it. Stunned by the prospect
of losing her mother and concerned about the legal
ramifications of participating in her suicide, Zoe does what
she can to convince her mother to abandon her plans. But for
nearly a year, Margaret will talk of nothing else. Calling
Zoe at random times of the day, she blithely asks which
would be better: overdosing on morphine or Seconal? Getting
help from the Hemlock Society or doing it on her own? And
when would be a good time -- February or May? Or how about
June? Shuttling between her family in California and
her mother's house in Washington, D.C., Zoe finds herself
increasingly drawn into her mother's "exit plans." She helps
Margaret procure a lethal dose of drugs from a local
psychiatrist and endures a bizarrely funny encounter with
Bud, the Hemlock Society's "Caring Friend" who seems a
little too eager to help Margaret kill
herself. Anxious to maintain her role as "the good
daughter," Zoe finds herself in conflict with her older
sisters, both of whom have difficult histories with their
mother. As the three women negotiate over whether or not
they should support Margaret's choice and who should be
there at the end, their discussions stir up old alliances
and animosities, along with memories of a childhood
dominated by their elegant mother and philandering
father. Capturing the stresses and the joys of the
"sandwich generation" while bringing a provocative new
perspective to the assisted suicide debate, Imperfect
Endings is the uplifting story of a woman determined to die
on her own terms and the family who has to learn to let her go.
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