Brief Book Reviews: March 2025

BRIEF BOOK REVIEWS

Popular Books Relevant to Mental Health

In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss

Amy Bloom; Random House, 2022

240 pages; $11.99 (paperback)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Amy had a deep and loving relationship with her second husband, Brian, a Yale graduate and a successful architect. In his final job, in his early 60s, he was let go when he could not work fast enough. He blamed the administration. In the ensuing 18 months, his demeanor changed. He lost interest in his book club and found the scheduling changes difficult to follow. He did not seem to care as much about his attire or showering. His balance was a bit off. Finally, they met with a neurologist. His Mini-Mental Status Exam was 23 out of 30. The MRI showed enlarged ventricle and a brain smaller than would be expected for a 66-year-old Ivy League graduate. The neurologist diagnosed Brian with Alzheimer disease.

Within 48 hours, Brian announced that the “long goodbye” of Alzheimer disease was not for him. “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” Thus began Amy’s search for a peaceful and dignified for Brian to end his life.

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in about a dozen states in the US. However, qualifying for treatment requires having a terminal illness with approximately 6 months to live, along with the competency to consent and the physical capacity to self-administer the barbiturates. Alzheimer disease does not meet the standard. Brian’s wish was not going to happen in the United States, but Amy found a clinic in Switzerland that offered a possibility.

With humor, humility, plenty of love, and heart-breaking sorrow, Amy tells of her struggle to fulfill her husband’s wishes while he still understood what he was asking for. His local physicians (internist, psychiatrist, and neurologist) were not especially helpful and at times even presented obstacles, all while his diminishing cognitive capacity was slowly closing the door on his ability to give consent.

In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face-to-Face with the Idea of an Afterlife

Sebastian Junger; Simon & Schuster, 2024

176 pages; $13.90 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Sebastian Junger is a rugged, in-the-field journalist who issued reports from numerous dangerous locations, including almost a decade from within the fog of war in Afghanistan. He is also a long-distance runner and avid surfer, as well as a bar owner in New York City. He did not shy from adventure and, hence, in the course of his life, had several brushes with death. But none of this prepared him for the vascular accident that ruptured in his abdomen in the midst of the 2020 pandemic. For all intents and purposes, he should have died.

The bulk of the story is Junger’s retrospective analysis of the details of his near-death experience. It is a fascinating account of a vascular emergency and the extraordinary interventions the doctors, nurses, and technicians, exert to save his life. However, it is the visitation from his deceased father, while he was slipping away, which encompuses the bulk of the story. His father seemed to be telling him, “Don’t fight it. I’ll take care of you.”

After his recovery, Junger sets out to wrap his arms around his near-death experience. He explores the scientific explanations as well as the spiritual and mystical, and presents a balanced, thoughtful discussion of a fascinating topic.

Dr Higgins is an affiliate associate professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.