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| Category: |
Drama |
Publisher: |
CreateSpace |
ISBN-10: |
1434887928 |
Type: |
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| Pages: |
232 |
Copyright: |
Jan 28, 2008 |
ISBN-13: |
9781434887924
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Fiction |
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We all have to make decisions. Some are harder than others. Marissa Sheldon has to decide whether her comatose husband should live or die.
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Two years ago, George Sheldon went in for a simple operation, but never came home. A reaction to the anesthetic left him in a Persistent Vegetative State, and now, in A DEATH WITHOUT MALICE, his wife is forced to make a terrible choice that she does not have the courage to face. Her family tries to convince her that it's time to let go, but Marissa clings to a shred of hope that is not there. A meeting with a world-renowned neurologist, Gerhard Strauss, takes that shred of hope and makes it real when he tells her of a new stimulation therapy to arouse comatose patients. He offers Marissa a deal: if he cannot get results with her husband in two weeks, she must finally let him go. In the weeks that follow, Marissa must confront questions of life, death, and most of all love.
Excerpt
In me lies a memory that this man needs in order to survive. He cannot have an identity without me. Nor can he acquire a perception of space and time. I give him life as surely as the air and his God because were I not to exist, he would not exist either. There would be nothing to bridge one event in his life to another. He needs me to remember the passion of taking a woman he desires, of seeing the world from the top of a mountain or feeling the pain of death and loss.
Yet I am nothing more than a cell that hides in the innermost workings of his mind. My memory of myself requires that he live and breathe. And yet, as I ponder myself, I wonder – when he dies, will I?
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Professional Reviews
Denise Clark, Gemini Reviews
Can you imagine how difficult it is to watch a loved one die? Marissa Sheldon can. She's living the horror on a day-by-day basis after her husband, George goes in for surgery one day and never wakes up, a result of a reaction to his anesthetic.
A Death Without Malice explores the issues regarding life support through the eyes of Marissa, a woman who loves her husband and yet is caught in an anguished state of limbo after he is placed on life support. Two long years later, she's tired, yet hesitant to make the decision to let him go.
Despite the support of family and friends, Marissa is not quite ready to say goodbye to her husband, despite her deep feelings that perhaps it would be best, for both of them, to allow him to slip away. Torn between allowing a thin ray of hope to invade her desolate world and grasping for the slimmest chances that she can save her husband, Marissa meets with a famous neurologist who informs her of a new technique that may stimulate George out of his coma. However, his hope offering comes with a caveat: If they do not see an improvement in George's condition within two weeks, she must agree to finally let him go.
A Death Without Malice starts off with a bang and never lets the reader go. Caught up in Marissa's torments and hopes, the reader is taken along for a ride that explores questions concerning love, life and death, and the Right to Die. Author M.N. Norton includes every angle in this well written and fast paced read, from not only the major character's point of view, but those of George's loved ones as well.
A gutsy attempt, author Norton pulls the subject off with great attention to detail, well developed characters and a smooth flowing prose that will keep the reader engaged and interested as the story plays out.
One of the better developed attempts on this issue, M.N. Norton's A Death Without Malice will not only provide a riveting read, but prompt readers to stop and think about 'What If…?'
Highly recommended read.
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