One of the things I have absolutely enjoyed since starting this blog is the messages I received from authors, kindly offering their books. Alison Jean Lester is one of those authors, and I had the pleasure of meeting her for a coffee in Helsinki this summer, as she was making her way back from a writing retreat in Lapua.
I am also delighted that we will be having a Dead Good Conversation about Absolutely Delicious: a chronicle of extraordinary dying this November as part of the virtual Lifting the Lid 2022 festival. Lifting the Lid is a free international online event and you can get your ticket via their website.
The starting point of Absolutely Delicious is one of the things I also absolutely enjoyed: Alison’s mother had a good experience at the end of life. She experienced a so-called ‘good death’. While this is still the story of a daughter who is sad to lose her mother, the main take-away is: look at this wonderful live, that ended in a wonderful death. Alison does weave in the story of her aunt Jean dying, showing that such a good end-of-life experience is definitely not a given and can differ even within families. But it is nice to read an account where parental bereavement does not come as a huge shock, or is a major challenge to a person’s identity, but is understood as a natural part of life. This is probably also due to Alison’s age as, let’s be honest, it can be expected that you lose your parents in your 50s.
“My mother, Valerie Lester, died on the morning of June 7, 2019, of metastatic melanoma. I’m driven to write about it because her death was, by all the standards I can imagine, a good one. Not only was the moment of her death good; the weeks of decline leading to her death were good. And not only that; the eighteen months between her first dire prognosis and her death were some of the happiest months of her life.”
— Alison Jean Lester, Absolutely Delicious (2020, page xiii)
The design and style of the book all point to the creativity of the family Alison was raised in. The memoir is filled with little poems and reflections, both from Alison and her mother Valerie. The humour of Alison’s mum also shines through as, for example, she named her three brain tumours Mel, An and Oma.
The book has lovely illustrations made by Mary Ann Frye, a friend of Valerie. Whilst Alison as an author made sense of her mother’s death through writing, Mary Ann did so through the medium of drawing.
In Absolutely Delicious we learn about Valerie’s (and Alison’s!) life story. How an English girl ended up in the United States. How she raised a family, wrote biographies, cared for her husband and at a certain point moved to assisted living and, finally, to hospice care. Valerie made choices along the way about divesting her belongings, and the things she wanted to do before she died. One of the final things she did was enjoying a refreshing Gin and Tonic, and her response to this final drink is the title of this book.
I think this memoir will speak particularly to people who are faced with the reality of ageing (and dying) parents. Alison does not preach for the way to discus dying with a parent, but vividly and eloquently describes what worked in the journey with her mother. Despite the overarching positive experience she describes, the final chapter highlights three things Alison would do differently if she had to do it all again. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to death and dying, relationships between parents and children will differ, but it is absolutely wonderful to read about a story where things go well.
To learn more about Alison Jean Lester and her other work visit her website.
I will be having a Dead Good Conversation with Alison Jean Lester as part of the Lifting the Lid festival. We will talk November 18 at 17:30GMT. To book a ticket for the Lifting the Lid Festival click here.
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