Wrongful Death: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Sandra M. Gilbert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 1995

"A wrenching tale of medical mistakes, death, shock, grief, and frustration, told with love and anger."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Sandra Gilbert's husband, Elliot, underwent surgery for prostate cancer at a major medical center, and then inexplicably died hours later in the recovery room. To this day, no one from the hospital has told his family how or why he died.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sixty-year-old Elliot Gilbert died mysteriously within twenty-four hours of checking into a hospital for routine prostate surgery. Wrongful Death is his widow's account of one family's experience with a type of medical disaster that occurs all too frequently but is rarely discussed in public policy debates focussed on growing costs and exorbitant lawyer fees.

From Publishers Weekly

"Because my husband, superb storyteller though he was, could not tell his own story, I have had to tell his story for him." This powerful memoir revisits and examines the 1991 death of poet and feminist scholar Gilbert's (No Man's Land) husband Elliot following prostate cancer surgery at the University of California Davis Medical Center. She and her family, suspecting medical negligence, engaged a lawyer and investigated the circumstances of the death; in 1992 they settled their lawsuit out of court. The memoir recounts the events preceding Elliot's death and leading up to and beyond the legal resolution. But its power lies in the writer's anger and her grief, and in her all-consuming determination: her book is a moving and extended meditation on moral obsession. It is also about the strained but stalwart emotional resources of a family. And it's a book likely to reach a broad readership among those who are increasingly suspicious of the medical establishment or who have suffered an abrupt loss like the author's. She is a professor of English at the University of California, Davis, as was her husband.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (March 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393037215
• ISBN-13: 978-0393037210
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Law > Family & Health Law > Malpractice

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tragic Yet Beautiful Lament., July 24, 1999

By 

Andrea Sonn (East Windsor, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wrongful Death: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I guess it really does take a poet to effectively take on medical incompetence and professional arrogance. This book is a heartbreaker. It's also beautifully written and unforgettable. A story of mature love and unnecessary loss. This subject could not have been handled more brilliantly if every medical journal in the country addressed it. Of course addressing wrongful death and medical malpractice is not really in vogue in political circles today. Thank God for the lawyers! And thank God Sandra Gilbert was able to pull herself together after the loss of her husband to tell us this story and absolutely make us feel the loss, the tragedy, and the anger. It made me cry. Read it. It's important.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight, March 1, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Wrongful Death: A Memoir (Norton Paperback) (Paperback)

This book accurately reflects the emotions and disorientation experienced by the loved ones of a patient who suffers a sudden, unexpected and - at least in their belief - preventable death. I'm not going to debate the medical merits with the first reviewer, no doubt a physician. But after 20 years of representing malpractice victims in legal proceedings, I can say it truly reflects their pain and their motivation in seeking legal counsel in a death case: A desire for information, honesty and validation. The book also addresses how the legal system can be a crud tool for achieving those goals - but the only tool they have.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She's a poet and very good with words, July 15, 2004

By 

ed (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wrongful Death: A Memoir (Norton Paperback) (Paperback)

It was negligence, or the university regents would not have paid the settlement. I've not reviewed a book here before, but wanted to counter some of the unfair reviews I just read. We know this kind of thing happens sometimes. She lost the love of her life, and their children lost their father. Ms. Gilbert needed to write this, and it is well worth reading. It is, however, very sad.