
Last Writes
A Daybook for a Dying Friend
Laurel Richardson(Author)
Left Coast Press Inc
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 31. August 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-59874-187-2 (ISBN)
Description
Betty Frankel Kirschner succumbed to emphysema one day in June. She had been a long-term professor at Kent State University, founding member of the feminist caucus in sociology, a political activist, a chain smoker. Close friend Laurel Richardson, a key figure in literary turn in ethnographic writing, kept a daybook, relating their conversations and interactions over Betty's last few months. Rich in memory, emotion, dreams, and life-and-death decisions, the daybook chronicles the ups and down of a terminally ill woman and the impact that illness has on friends, colleagues, and family alike. Richardson also grapples with the ethics of writing deeply personal narratives. Part memoir, part sociological analysis, part eulogy to a departed friend, Richardson opens a poignant window into living an academic life, and ending it.
Reviews / Votes
'Richardson has always written masterful prose and poetry but nothing quite as compelling as Last Writes. When writing about dying, authors find it tempting to slip into flowery prose and attempt to evoke pathos from the readers, but not Richardson. The prose in this daybook is direct, matter of fact, and to the point while all along opening new vistas, evoking powerful feelings, and making the reader feel as if she were ""there.""...Who should read this book? Everyone. I plan to use it in my seminars on death and dying, but this book is not just about death and dying. It is a book about friendship and the work it takes to keep a friendship alive in the face of death. Most of all, this is a book about what it means to be a sensitive person and to witness the slow decline of a friend and try to hold on to that friend, and that friendship, despite the sorrow and the hurt, to the very end.' Andrea Fontana, Symbolic InteractionMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Walnut Creek
United States
Illustrations
black & white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
249 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-59874-187-2 (9781598741872)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2016
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download

E-Book
07/2016
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download

Book
08/2007
1st Edition
Left Coast Press Inc
€215.41
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Person
Laurel Richardson is Professor Emeritus of Sociology from Ohio State University. She specializes in qualitative methodology, gender, symbolic interactionism, the sociology of knowledge and arts-based research. She served as co-editor of the Feminist Frontiers series and has authored six books, including Cooley Award-winner Fields of Play (Rutgers), Writing Strategies (Sage), The New Other Woman (Free Press), and Travels with Ernest (AltaMira).
Content
Chapter 1 October; Chapter 2 November; Chapter 3 December; Chapter 4 January; Chapter 5 February; Chapter 6 March; Chapter 7 April; Chapter 8 May; Chapter 9 June; Chapter 10 July; Chapter 11 Afterword;