"Getting to Know Death: A Meditation," by Gail Godwin

For decades, I have read, admired, learned from, and enjoyed Gail Godwin's contemplative, psychologically insightful novels (the best known of which is probably "The Odd Woman"), most of them well before I began this blog in 2010. However, I did write here about the most recent one, "Flora," on 6/7/13. I also wrote a post about Godwin's useful and revealing "Publishing: A Writer's Memoir" (8/22/15). Her very recent book, "Getting to Know Death" (Bloomsbury, 2024), is short (172 pages) but intense, describing her experiences with and feelings about age, serious illnesses and injuries (including, most prominently and frighteningly, her recent fall that caused a broken neck, and her ensuing long and difficult period of recovery), the deaths of people close to her (including her husband), and, now in her mid-eighties, the prospect of her own death. Although the author is candid and courageous in dealing with all of these difficult events, the book is less depressing that this description might suggest. It is not exactly "inspirational" either, but is matter of fact, thoughtful, and life affirming. It is divided into many short chapters, some on her personal history, some expressing doubts about her own ability to keep writing, some meditating on death, some reproducing or creating letters to and from the author, some quoting other authors, and a few unclassifiable pieces of writing. I wasn't sure how I would feel about this book, with its sensitive and difficult topics, or whether I would even want to finish it, but because of my admiration of Godwin, and because once I started reading it I was drawn in, I continued to the end, and am glad I did so.