description: In 1997 Rebecca Brown's mother, Barbara Wildman Brown, became ill with cancer. In Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary the author traces, in sparse prose, the slow, gradual erosion of her mother's health, her dignity and her life. In seventeen short chapters, from 'anaemia', 'twilight sleep' and 'metastasis', to 'unction', 'cremation' and 'remains', the author describes the family's journey through her mother's illness and death. Written unsentimentally, and with sometimes painful honesty, Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary is an extraordinarily moving commemoration of a life and death.
language: English
title: Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary
titlecomplete: Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary
genres: Biography Memoir, Memoir, Nonfiction, Death
ratings_count: 160
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Washington State Book Award
publisher: Granta Books