Isn’t it curious that we watch movies and read books full of bloody murders without batting an eyelash, while a novel about assisted suicide is considered controversial?
In November, I read a review on GoodReads about my new novel, When I Killed My Father: An Assisted-Suicide Family Thriller:
This indeed was a page turner. Although I really wouldn’t support or approve of any assisted suicide, this was really interesting to read about.
I wrote the reviewer a note saying I was glad she enjoyed it, and asked — since she noted she didn’t support assisted suicide — if she assumed I did.
My intention, I wrote, was to tell a compelling and entertaining story, not advocate for any particular position. I deliberately avoided taking a stand on what should be legal or not.
But I do believe we should think and talk more about end-of-life questions — as individuals, families, and in our overall society.
When I wrote earlier murder mysteries, no one assumed I advocated murder. No reviewers felt the need to qualify their thoughts: “Of course I don’t approve of murder…”
I knew that this story, about a man ending his dying father’s life, would be controversial. And sure, the title is provocative. But I didn’t expect the blowback.
I hosted two book launch events this fall as part of Reimagine End of Life, a Bay Area “festival” exploring questions about life and death. I titled my event, “Why I Wrote an Assisted-Suicide Family Thriller,” and billed it as one part book reading and one part conversation about end-of-life concerns, such as family decisions, dementia and dying.
One event was in my neighborhood, at the Tam Valley Cabin on Tennessee Valley Road, where I’ve volunteered for five summers at the Creekside Fridays concerts. I asked the woman in charge if our local park department might co-sponsor the book event.
She said they were too busy in October with the Haunted House and other activities, and also, that it was a touchy subject. She wasn’t sure what she felt about it.
Fair enough. But the department produces a murder mystery dinner theater every year, and no one questions that for being too touchy.
And there’s the difference. The murder mysteries are full of jokes and pratfalls, meant to entertain. They’re a comic variation on those shoot-em-up action films where bodies are dropping everywhere, or the TV cop shows that invariably include a gunfight that takes out all the bad guys. Afterwards, the heroes go out drinking and tell jokes.
All that is make-believe. In our real world, killing someone or just seeing someone die is a ghastly event. If your parent or other loved one is sick and suffering — lingering before death — it is worse yet. So though I called my book a thriller, paced it accordingly, and aimed to be as entertaining as the Tam Valley murder mysteries, I wanted it to be more than that. If it makes people uncomfortable, maybe I got it right.
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