Amazon.co.uk Review
34-year old John Dally flew home from New York to London in December 1993, only to be promptly admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. The disease, however, was only the first manifestation of something even more serious. John Dally had an AIDS-related illness. There have been a number of books in this genre, the Confession of Mortality memoir: John Diamond's
C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too and Ruth Picardie's
Before I Say Goodbye are just two outstanding examples. Here is something slightly different, however. For
Dying Twice is written not by John himself, but by his sister, Emma, who has previously published three novels. This gives the harrowing process of her brother's decline a powerful new perspective, because Emma can see all too well that her beloved brother, for all his charm and good looks, was also, "all his life, irresponsible and reckless and he left a mess behind him when he died." At school, "during games, all he wanted to do was smoke cigarettes in the bushes". In his flashy 20s he made, and spent, a great deal of money with his own courier business. He was "kind and generous, but he could also be shockingly selfish and thoughtless". He never had a formal education, rarely read a newspaper and never a book, and yet his sister remembers his "spontaneity of thought, full of curiosity and interesting observations about life". This is an honest book, as it needs to be. It is also moving and a fine memorial to an all-too-typical human being. --
Christopher Hart
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
In December 1993, 34-year-old John Dally flew from New York to London to be admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. Some members of his large extended family were not aware that he was in the country; others knew only too well that this illness signalled the beginning of a gruelling journey towards his death from AIDS at some point in the future. For John's siblings, it would be the death of another brother; for his parents, the death of another son in his mid-thirties. In this description of John's last months, his sister Emma describes the effect that AIDS has on his friends and family and his doctor parents. Reading like a novel, it describes everyone's efforts to look after him, to encourage him to make the best use of his last days. It depicts the rapid deterioration of John's health, his dramatic, failed suicide attempt, and the final weeks, when he is cared for in his own home. It seeks to capture the intense camaraderie, as well as the frustrations, tensions and arguments about health care that develop between the loved ones at the bedside.
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