A Very Easy Death

Long considered one of Simone de Beauvoir-s masterpieces, A Very Easy Death is a profoundly affecting, day-by-day recounting of her mother-s final days after she is hospitalized following a fall. Though a devout Catholic, her faith is subsumed by her terror of death, and as her body fails, she clings to life with fierce, primal desperation. In depicting her mother-s refusal to -go gentle- while her autonomy and dignity are taken from her, Simone de Beauvoir -shows the power of compassion when it is allied with acute intelligence- (Sunday Telegraph). Powerful, touching and sometimes shocking, this is an end-of-life account that no reader is likely to forget.