When doctors told Art Buchwald that his kidneys were kaput, the renowned humorist declined dialysis and checked into a Washington, D.C., hospice to live out his final days. Months later, βThe Man Who Wouldnβt Dieβ was still there, feeling good, holding court in a nonstop βsalonβ for his family and dozens of famous friends, and confronting things you usually donβt talk about before you die; he even jokes about them.
Here Buchwald shares not only his remarkable experienceβas dozens of old pals from Ethel Kennedy to John Glenn to the Queen of Swaziland join the partyβbut also his whole wonderful life: his first love, an early brush with death in a foxhole on Eniwetok Atoll, his fourteen champagne years in Paris, fame as a columnist syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, and his incarnation as hospice superstar. Buchwald also shares his sorrows: coping with an absent mother, childhood in a foster home, and separation from his wife, Ann.
He plans his funeral (with a priest, a rabbi, and Billy Graham, to cover all the bases) and strategizes how to land a big obituary in The New York Times (βMake sure no head of state or Nobel Prize winner dies on the same dayβ). He describes how he and a few of his famous friends finagled cut-rate burial plots on Marthaβs Vineyard and how he acquired a Picasso drawing without really trying.
What we have here is a national treasure, the complete Buchwald, uncertain of where the next days or weeks may take him but unfazed by the inevitable, living life to the fullest, with frankness, dignity, and humor. β[Art Buchwald] has given his friends, their families, and his audiences so many laughs and so much joy through the years that that alone would be an enduring legacy. But Art has never been just about the quick laugh. His humor is a road map to essential truths and insights that might otherwise have eluded us.β βTom Brokaw
Media Buzz
Early Show - January 19, 2007 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - January 18, 2007 Day To Day - January 18, 2007 Today - December 21, 2006 CBS Sunday Morning - December 17, 2006 Diane Rehm Show - NPR - November 22, 2006
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