Last Wish [Paperback]

Betty Rollin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 1998

At a time when tempers flare over the Oregon assisted suicide law and Jack Kevorkian's physician-aid-in-dying, Last Wish, Betty Rollin's groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, is due for a rereading. Last Wish is an intimate, fiercely honest memoir of a daughter's struggle to come to terms with her terminally ill mother's decision to die. More than a examination of the ethical, spiritual, and technical aspects of assisted suicide, Last Wish is also a celebration of Rollin's imperfect family, a passionate testament to her mother's character and courage, and a compelling argument for the right of the terminally ill to a humane and dignified death. The PublicAffairs paperback edition includes a new foreword, questions for thought and discussion, and a helpful resource guide.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this book TV journalist Rollin chronicles her mother's two-and-a-half year illness with ovarian cancer, from the diagnosis to her decision to end her unrelenting pain and nausea through suicide. The details of Rollin's role in helping to carry out her mother's last wish by providing information, support, and the means necessary to act upon the decision are widely known through prepublication media coverage. As in her earlier book, First You Cry (1976), about her own breast cancer and mastectomy, Rollin's crisp reportorial writing contrasts sharply with the painfully personal and highly controversial subject matter. Because of the publicity surrounding its release and the current interest in euthanasia, Last Wish is sure to be requested often. BOMC featured alternate. Karen McNally Bensing, Metropolitan General Hospital Lib., Cleveland
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"The book is not really about death. It is, instead, a loving tribute to Mrs. Rollin's spirited progress through life" (Baltimore Sun) "One of the most remarkable testiments of our time, a document of personal compassion and public importance. . . .It embraces you and makes you want to embrace the writer for her courage in both the act and its recounting." (Cosmopolitan) "Searing...an extraordinary story of love tested to its limits. It reads like a thriller-only better, because thrillers rarely achieve the kind of pathos and humanity of Rollin's story." (Detroit Free Press) "Brilliant." (New York Post) "A story told with compassion, anger, humor, and most importantly, profound love." -- San Diego Tribune

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs (August 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891620010
• ISBN-13: 978-1891620010
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #564,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They made the suicide decision; would you?, August 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Wish (Paperback)

Breast cancer survivor and journalist Betty Rollin, who wrote the classic First ,You Cry, has written another classic here, the story of her mother's failing battle with ovarian cancer and the suicide that Rollin and her husband, Ed, helped her mother, at her mother's insistence, to implement. I don't greatly approve of the suicide alternative nor of stories that, by making it sound so feasible, give encouragement in this direction. Not that I think God does such a great job of carrying people off; who would need suicide if that were the case? The problem is rather that the delicate boundary between personal choice and a choice brought on by social pressure gets breached as soon as a cultural movement toward the suicide option starts taking shape in the public mind. Indeed Rollin's book, whether she likes it or not, adds one more little increment to the assisted suicide ambience, an ambience that every family facing a situation becomes aware of. This being said, Rollin's mother's choice was so clearly her own and Rollin's book is so elegantly and perfectly written, without melodramatics and with just the right leavening of humor, that my impulse is to show it to everyone who might have the faintest reason to be interested! Rollin has an impeccable eye for the emotional, the medical and the legal complexities of the situation. In one episode, while she and her mother work out the plan, a chance remark sets off Rollin's tears: "Please, sweetheart, don't be upset," my mother said. "I'm doing what I want to do. I don't feel the least bit sorry for myself. I'm lucky I can get out of this. The people I feel sorry for are all the people who want to and can't. Please, sweetheart." I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "I know what you're saying, Mother, and I agree with you. But you can't expect me not to be upset. I think it's right what you're doing, but - but I love you. How can I not be upset?" She listened quietly when I said that. With some unsteadiness, I got up and blew my nose and came back and sat down. Then we resumed our plotting.

In another we find the plotter's coming up against the impasse of mother's failing digestive system: "What did you find out?" she asked. "Maybe these," I said, picking up the Dalmane. "How many?" "Probably around fifteen...or more." ...She looked at the bottle again and frowned. "How will I be able to take fifteen pills?" "That's the problem," I said, "But we're gathering other ideas." "What other ideas?" Oh God, I thought, please stop. She sighed and turned her head to the wall. "Maybe you could take me to the roof of this building. I hear it's nice up there." I looked down at my hands. It was getting hard to tell when something was a joke. "Your digestion could improve, Mother. That could happen." She nodded. "So I can't die until I feel better."

Staying on the safe side, legally, meant making mother's suicide seem unassisted, and this involves Betty and Ed in detailed mental shuffling. Who will discharge the night nurse? Will the next day nurse be able to handle finding her patient dead and will she wonder why no night nurse met her at the door? How to keep a certain relative from calling that night? Who can be found to check in the night and make sure mother has not re-awakened in distress? Etc. Rollin learns, as she puts it, "A new respect for the intelligence of criminals." This book could, in all fairness be used to help families decide against assisted suicide as well as for it. In the end, Rollin's mother recovered sufficient digestive powers to keep her death potient down, and it was her continued mental lucidity and canny social skills - it was she who got the doctor to prescribe, it was she who rescheduled the nurses and fobbed off innocent relatives - that were the key to bringing it off. She ate a bite of food 6 hours before the appointed time; took a Compazine 1 hour before; then at the appointed time, 20 tiny 100 mg tabs of Nembutal, chased by 5 Dalmane. All washed down with soda water. There you go, folks.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, September 14, 2007

By 

Christine Quiriy (Littleton, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last Wish (Paperback)

This is a beautifully written, affectionate portrait of a much-loved mother, by her adoring daughter. Part biography, part memoir, part autobiography, Betty writes with candor about her relationship with her mother and about her mother's battle with ovarian cancer. We should all be so lucky as to have someone who makes sure we get our last wish. Bravo to Betty and Ed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read, December 12, 2002

By 

Lynnie Low (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Wish (Paperback)

"Last Wish" is the true story of the author, Betty Rollin's mother, a health concerned and loving woman in her mid seventies. Betty tells the story of her mothers experience after being diagnosed with ovarian cander and her own experience being related to someone with cancer. This book shoes the hardships of cancer, chemotherepy, and assisted suicide on both the cancer patients and their friends and familys. Betty Rollin does a wonderfull job telling her story with great emotion and truth. I recommend this to anyone suffering with cancer, being close to someone with cancer, interested in or researching cancer.