Exit, Stage Left

A candid, sometimes playful journey through the ways we fear, deny, rehearse, and finally reckon with death.

Overview

While many of us avoid planning for, contemplating and even mentioning death, Exit Stage Left: Lessons in the Art of Dying sweeps aside the taboo, allowing the reader to approach their own inevitable end with a sense of curiosity. This travelogue on dying approaches death from the author’s perspective as a patient, a hospice volunteer for people at the end of life, and someone who, in a short space of time, was assaulted by an overwhelming number of deaths and near-deaths among her loved ones.

Four sections—Taboo, Terror, Denial, Reckoning—take the reader on a journey from avoidance to agency. These pieces run from poignant to playful to probing, sometimes in a single essay, exploring the rich terrain of our inevitable end.

She doesn’t succumb to the usual binary, that death is either preciously profound or unspeakably ghoulish. This full-frontal look at the finale can be liberating, motivating readers to live the days they have left with purpose, and plan for an elegant departure.

Completed manuscript. Read an excerpt →