Absolutely Delicious

Alison Jean Lester

ISBN 10: 1838112405 / ISBN 13: 9781838112400

Published by Bench Press, GB, 2020

About this Item

After a life marbled with exploration, academia, and domesticity, the writer Valerie Lester retired to a residential hospice and set about enjoying the final act of her life. Yes. Enjoying. She knew just where she wanted to be, with whom, doing what, and she communicated this to her family and friends with clarity and consistency. She died nine weeks later, having engaged in dying with equanimity, curiosity, and even amusement.Absolutely Delicious: A Chronicle of Extraordinary Dying describes the months novelist Alison Jean Lester spent with her mother. Motivated to write the book because of how her mother faced the fact that her cancer was terminal, and how she chose to approach the end of her life with the same positive energy with which she had lived, Lester shares the emotional, medical, logistical and social aspects of this extraordinary experience. The book also includes a chapter on the death of her father, who faced his own terminal illness, ALS (motor neurone disease), with a similar rejection of extreme life-prolonging measures and with the desire to spend his final days in peace, nine years before. There is a chapter, too, on Lester's aunt, who died three months after her mother, having taken a very different approach to the idea, and the reality, of dying. Woven into the narrative are poems both by the author and her mother, as they shared the impulse to grapple with life's challenges through poetry. The book is interspersed with diverse, emotional illustrations by artist and graphic designer Mary Ann Frye. A good friend of both the author and her mother, Frye processed the death of her friend in drawings while the author was processing it in words.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781838112400

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Absolutely Delicious
• Publisher: Bench Press, GB
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1838112405
• ISBN 13: 9781838112400
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Frye, Mary Ann
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.24W x 1.19H x 22.86D centimeters 15.24 centimeters width by 1.19 centimeters height by 22.86 centimeters depth
• Weight: 281 grams

About this title

Synopsis

After a life marbled with exploration, academia, and domesticity, the writer Valerie Lester retired to a residential hospice and set about enjoying the final act of her life. Yes. Enjoying.She knew just where she wanted to be, with whom, doing what, and she communicated this to her family and friends with clarity and consistency. She died nine weeks later, having engaged in dying with equanimity, curiosity, and even amusement.In Absolutely Delicious, Valerie’s daughter describes the roads leading to her mother’s cooperation with her terminal disease and her decision to forego treatments that might have prolonged her life, but also might have ruined her death. It is a story that illuminates the benefits of acceptance and the many gifts offered by daring to own one’s end.

About the Author

Alison Jean Lester is the author of the novels 'Lillian on Life' and 'Yuki Means Happiness', and the short story collection 'Locked Out: Stories Far from Home'. She spent her early life in the US and the UK, and pursued her higher education in the US, China and Italy. She lived in Japan from 1991 to 1999, working as a freelance writer and voiceover artist, and giving birth to her two children. From 1999 to 2016 she lived in Singapore, where she ran her own communication skills training and coaching business. She now lives in England.