Too Soon to Say Goodbye

New York: Random House, 2006. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. x, 189, [9] pages. Includes index. Bookplate signed by the author (Art Buchwald) inside the front cover. The frontis illustration is a full page black and white photograph of the author. Crease in page 125/126. The book contains an Epilogue and an Index. When the doctors told humorist Art Buchwald that his kidneys were caput, he declined dialysis and checked into a Washington, D.C.L. hospice to live out his final days. Months late, he was still there, feeling good. In this book, he shares his remarkable experiences, both happy and sad, plans his funeral, and strategizes how to land a big obituary in the New York Times. Uncertain of where the next days or weeks might take him, he was unfazed by the inevitable, living life to the fullest, with frankness, dignity, and humor. Derived from a Publisher's Weekly review: "Being in the hospice didn't work out exactly as I had planned it,"" begins Buchwald .... In February 2006, Buchwald was told he would need ongoing dialysis, which he promptly decided to discontinue, moving into a Washington hospice to die on his own terms. What was intended to be a three-week exit for the Pulitzer Prize-winning author turned into months of visitors, rumination and writing. The result is this hilarious, sobering and unconventional study of the issues that accompany the end of life, such as living wills and surrogates, funerals, food and even sex. As he has throughout his career, Buchwald pares down overwhelming topics into manageable steps, gently and with humor, noting that, for instance ""the beauty of not dying but expecting to, is that it gives you a chance to say goodbye to everybody,"" and it's these goodbyes that provide Buchwald with the framework to revisit his storied career-spanning two continents, populated by global luminaries and celebrated with multiple awards. Though entertaining as a talented satirist's retrospective, it's also a valuable primer on how to meet death with bravery and grace, reminding us that ""the big question we still have to ask is not where we're going, but what we were doing here in the first place."