Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics

by Eleanor Clift

Overview

What has become known as the Schiavo affair-the death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida in 2005, and the controversy that surrounded it-was a revelatory moment in American society. For the first time, the nation got a clear view of both the fanaticism gripping the religious right and the political power it could bring to bear even when the vast majority of the country disagreed with it. But it was also a turning point: a moment when America seemed to glimpse a dangerous radicalism, and began to pull back. Eleanor Clift witnessed this event from a unique vantage point. At the same time that Schiavo was dying in her Florida hospice, Clift's husband, Tom Brazaitis, was dying of cancer at home; the two passed away within a day of each other. Two Weeks of Life alternates between these two stories to provide a moving commentary on how we deal, or fail to deal, with dying in modern America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465012800
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	02/24/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Eleanor Clift is a contributing editor for Newsweek and a regular panelist on the nationally syndicated show The McLaughlin Group. She lives in Washington, D.C.

www.EleanorClift.com

Table of Contents

Preface     ix
Thursday, March 17, 2005: Who Decides?     1
Friday, March 18, 2005: Pulling the Plug     17
Saturday, March 19, 2005: A National Obsession     34
Sunday, March 20, 2005: Palm Sunday Compromise     50
Monday, March 21, 2005: The Hard, Honest Road     69
Tuesday, March 22, 2005: Two, Three Days at a Time?     87
Wednesday, March 23, 2005: Politics vs. Morality     103
Thursday, March 24, 2005: Arc of Human Existence     118
Friday, March 25, 2005: Hey, Good-Looking     134
Saturday, March 26, 2005: Living Corpse     150
Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005: Science vs. Religion     165
Monday, March 28, 2005: Comfort Kit     181
Tuesday, March 29, 2005: Being There     199
Wednesday, March 30, 2005: Saying Good-bye     216
Thursday, March 31, 2005: Learning from Terri     231
Epilogue     251
Acknowledgments     271
Appendix     275
References     309
Index     317

Editorial Reviews

…[a] fascinating book: a cool, calm look at hospice care as an alternative to the crazy-expensive, often terribly painful, doesn't-work-all-that-well strutting that passes for medical care in this country.
—The Washington Post

Carolyn See

Newsweek columnist and McLaughlin Group pundit Clift combines a journalist's account of the political circus surrounding Terri Schiavo's death with the personal story of the death of her husband, Tom Brazaitis. During the last two weeks of March 2005, both lay dying, the cancer-ridden Brazaitis quietly at home, the brain-damaged Schiavo in a Florida hospice center surrounded by fervid demonstrators and swarming media. Clift organizes their stories in the form of a diary, but each day's entry is not limited to the events of that day. She provides ample background to the Schiavo case, giving a capsule history of the right to refuse medical treatment. She presents forthright portraits of Schiavo's family members-her parents, who wanted her kept alive, and her husband, who wanted her to be allowed to die-who had been fighting for years over who should decide her fate. The author gives even more attention to the politicians and the pro-life and disability-rights figures who insisted that she be kept alive, and the judge who ruled repeatedly on her right to die. The Schiavo case, writes Clift, was the center of an "extraordinary clash . . . between the religious right aided and abetted by the full force of the federal government and the U.S. judiciary in the person of Judge Greer." Drawing on transcripts from the McLaughlin Group, the author offers her own opinions on the politics of the situation, taking to task President George Bush, Governor Jab Bush and the Republicans in Congress. Meanwhile, her beloved husband was dying at home, his brain and bones invaded by cancer that had spread from his kidney, his care shared by Clift and hospice workers. Some readers may be offended by what could beviewed as an invasion of his privacy as the author includes unpleasant details of the physical and mental deterioration of a dying man. An epilogue contains roughly a dozen of Brazaitis's graceful, rueful columns for the Cleveland Plain Dealer about his struggle with cancer from July 1999 to January 2004. A powerful mix of opinion, reporting and poignant recollection. Agent: Deborah Grosvenor/Grosvenor Literary Agency

Kirkus Reviews