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“A triumph,
distinguished by the beauty of Ms. Butler’s prose and her saber-sharp
indictment of certain medical habits. [Butler offers an] articulate challenge
to the medical profession: to reconsider its reflexive postponement of death
long after lifesaving acts cease to be anything but pure brutality.”
— New York Times
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“More than just a
guide to dying or a personal story of a difficult death: It is a lyrical
meditation on death written with extraordinary beauty and sensitivity.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
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“Butler’s advice is
neither formulaic nor derived from pamphlets...[it] is useful, and her
challenge of our culture of denial about death necessary...Knocking on
Heaven’s Door [is] a book those caring for dying parents will want to read
and reread. [It] will help those many of us who have tended or will tend dying
parents to accept the beauty of our imperfect caregiving.”
— Boston Globe
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“A pitch-perfect call
for health-care changes in the mechanized deaths many suffer in America.”
— New York Journal of Books
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“Impeccably reported, Knocking
on Heaven’s Door grapples with how we need to protect our loved ones and
ourselves.”
— More
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“[A] deeply felt
book...[Butler] is both thoughtful and passionate about the hard questions she
raises—questions that most of us will at some point have to consider. Given our
rapidly aging population, the timing of this tough and important book could not
be better.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
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“Astonishingly
beautiful. [Butler’s] honest and challenging book is an invitation to all
people. Christians included. to reconsider the meaning of drawn-out deaths and
extreme measures in a historic and eternal perspective.”
— Christianity Today
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“Shimmer[s] with
grace, lucid intelligence, and solace.”
— Spirituality and Health Magazine
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“[An] unflinching look
at America’s tendency to overtreat [that] makes a strong case for the ‘slow
medicine’ movement, which recognizes that ‘dying can be postponed, but aging
cannot be cured.’”
— Mother Jones
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“In this eloquent exegesis on taking control of the end of one’s life, Butler defines a ‘good death’ as one that is free from unnecessary medical intervention and faced with acceptance and dignity.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“Butler argues
persuasively for a major cultural shift in how we understand death and dying,
medicine and healing. At the same time, she lays her heart bare, making this
much more than ideological diatribe.”
— BookPage
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“A forthright memoir on illness and investigation of how to
improve end-of-life scenarios…With candidness and reverence, Butler examines
one of the most challenging questions a child may face: how to let a parent die
with dignity and integrity when the body has stopped functioning. Honest and
compassionate thoughts on helping the elderly through the process of dying.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“This is a book so honest, so insightful and so achingly beautiful that its poetic essence transcends even the anguished story that it tells.”
— Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, author of How We Die: Reflections of Life’s Final Chapter
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“This book will change you, and, I hope, our society.”
— Anne Lamott, author of Help, Thanks, Wow