My sister slept with the light on until she was 27. She rightfully blames me. I would leap out of closets with my hands made into claws. I would...
Continue »
"Swimming in a Sea of Death, Rieff's memoir of the last, excruciatingly painful months of his mother's life, is as riveting as it is unremittingly harrowing. In those months, Sontag swung between despair and stubborn hope....The irony isn't lost on Rieff that his mother, a resolute atheist, had an almost religious belief in the always onward and upward progress of scientific research." Brigitte Frase, Star-Tribune (read the entire Star-Tribune review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Both a memoir and an investigation, Swimming in a Sea of Death is David Rieff's loving tribute to his mother, the writer Susan Sontag, and her final battle with cancer. Rieff's brave, passionate, and unsparing witness of the last nine months of her life, from her initial diagnosis to her death, is both an intensely personal portrait of the relationship between a mother and a son, and a reflection on what it is like to try to help someone gravely ill in her fight to go on living and, when the time comes, to die with dignity.
Rieff offers no easy answers. Instead, his intensely personal book is a meditation on what it means to confront death in our culture. In his most profound work, this brilliant writer confronts the blunt feelings of the survivor — the guilt, the self-questioning, the sense of not having done enough.
And he tries to understand what it means to desire so desperately, as his mother did to the end of her life, to try almost anything in order to go on living.
Drawing on his mother's heroic struggle, paying tribute to her doctors' ingenuity and faithfulness, and determined to tell what happened to them all, Swimming in a Sea of Death subtly draws wider lessons that will be of value to others when they find themselves in the same situation.
Review:
"At age 70, Susan Sontag was diagnosed with a virulent form of blood cancer, her third bout with cancer over the course of 30 years and one she would not win. Her son, journalist Rieff (At the Point of a Gun), accompanied her through her final illness and death, and offers an extraordinarily open, moving account of the trial and journey. Sontag's 'avidity' for life had prompted her to beat the advanced breast cancer that devastated her in 1975; she now resolved to fight the statistical odds of dying from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), despite the pessimistic prognosis from doctors. Rieff, who admits he was not close to his mother over the preceding decade, is silenced by Sontag's refusal to reconcile herself to dying and unable to console her. Both mother and son are by turns angered by doctors' infantilizing treatment of terminally ill patients and by their squelching of hope. Anxious, chronically unhappy and obsessed with gathering information about her disease, Sontag was unable to be alone, and Rieff becomes one in a circle of devotees who rotate staying with her at her New York City apartment. A doctor is found who does not believe her case is hopeless, and in Seattle she undergoes a bone-marrow transplant. In this sea of death, Sontag took her son with her — conflicted, wracked, but wrenchingly candid, Rieff attempts to swim out." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"The title of David Rieff's new book is grim but apt. Three years after his mother, Susan Sontag, died, Rieff remains deeply immersed in her last illness: its momentum, its personalities, even its language. In 2004, Sontag was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a deadly form of leukemia. She chose to fight the disease with radical treatment, having successfully battled earlier bouts of breast... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) cancer and uterine sarcoma. It became the task of her son and her friends, and to some degree of her doctors, to offer hope all along the way that there was a chance, however small, to bring the disease into remission. Rieff describes with piercing accuracy how loved ones of the terminally ill pick their way unsteadily between realistic prognosis and meaningful support, between truth and hope. To maintain one's emotional balance while a dying parent fights for her life is an excruciatingly painful and exhausting exercise. One has to accept the probability of death and the authenticity of the struggle for life — both at the same time. For a very small percentage of terminal cancer patients in even the worst cases, remission can occur. Somebody, after all, gets to be part of that lucky group. While his mother was sick, Rieff, a contributing writer for the New York Times and author of seven previous books, chose not to write about her illness, not even to take notes or write in a journal. To do so seemed to him both distancing and futile. 'What my mother and I shared were words,' he writes, 'and yet now they felt all but valueless — like Confederate dollars or Soviet roubles.' Instead, he became a companion, a confidant, an adviser and a research assistant. He helped his mother to investigate every aspect of the disease, to work with a series of doctors whose medical conclusions and interpersonal skills varied widely, and to explore any potentially helpful treatment, however minuscule its chance of effectiveness. He offered her the reassurance she desperately craved, telling her what she wanted to hear and what he did not believe: that against all the odds, she could survive. Rieff describes with admiration the ability of skillful physicians to convey the medical reality and give encouragement simultaneously. With the advantages of experience, objectivity and access to promising new treatments, they are able to envision not only the worst but also the best of possible outcomes, so that a Parisian oncologist could write honestly to Sontag after viewing her slides, 'I do not think your case is hopeless.' For Rieff, though, his mother's situation was catastrophic, and the choice 'boiled down to hope or truth.' By choosing to give her hope, he wonders now whether he 'might not have made things worse for her.' He raises an impossible question, one to which there can be no answer. A fast-moving cancer is a vortex of tremendous force, drawing everyone around the sick person into a dark spin of diagnostics, drugs, doctors, hospitals, 'procedures' and treatments, with little room left for emotional exploration. It is only after the inevitable death that the burden of feelings that survivors have carried can be examined. The most tenacious of these is often guilt, not so much the guilt of survivorship as the guilt of helplessness, the feeling that one should have done something more. Rieff's book is suffused, almost tainted, with self-questionings, but he writes so well that instead of muddying the narrative with these, he offers a clear and rare perspective on the dilemma of the loving witness — spouse, partner, sibling, child. On the one hand, he must absorb the full enormity of the disease in its every detail and implication. On the other, he must give his sick mother what she needs most, even if what she needs most is a lie that seems to contradict everything in her character, and in his. To be in such a position means being divided against oneself during one of the most intense events a life can hold. To describe this position so unflinchingly, and with such eloquence, means that David Rieff is his mother's son. Reeve Lindbergh has written a number of books for children and adults. Her next book, 'Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age and Other Unexpected Adventures,' will be published this spring." Reviewed by Reeve Lindbergh, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group) (hide most of this review)
Review:
"What is shocking about the memoir is how ordinary Sontag seems....For a writer who voluntarily embarks on a memoir about his mother, Rieff is curiously silent on the subject of their relationship, but the contrast in styles speaks for itself." New York Times
Review:
"Ultimately, this book presents a son trying to understand his mother's life and death and needing validation that, in the end, he did the right thing. Highly recommended." Library Journal
Review:
"A beautifully formed and philosophically probing memoir of an all-out fight for life and a sons love for his mother, and a deeply moving tribute to a world-altering writer." Booklist
Review:
"Susan Sontag was fiercely, exuberantly alive, and uncompromising in her life no less than her work. David Rieff's fine, tender, and unflinching portrait of her final illness brings home her absolute determination to survive to the last — to survive against the odds and live creatively despite a devastating disease and an unproven cancer treatment. At once a report from the frontlines of experimental oncology and a moving, absorbing personal account of his mother's last illness, Swimming in a Sea of Death is a courageous and darkly beautiful book." Oliver Sacks
Review:
"Rieff, who admits that he fears dying, writes thoughtfully about a child's duties in the time of dying. A useful handbook of a sort, as well as a concluding chapter to his mother's life." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"Watching Sontag die from a distance here, seeing her strategize, strategize against the dying of the light, is to be reminded of what made her so impressive....Sontag's admirers will appreciate the son's many sharp insights into his mother." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review:
"[Rieff] brings a certain amount of literary confidence to the writing table....[An] intelligent, provocative memoir." Newsday
Review:
"Rieff's memoir of the last, excruciatingly painful months of his mother's life, is as riveting as it is unremittingly harrowing." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review:
"[T]here is the sadness at the heart of Rieff's testimony: that mothers die, as fathers do, regardless of what they or their children believe or disbelieve. It is our humanity that makes us mortal, not our creeds or their antitheses." Los Angeles Times
Synopsis:
Both a memoir and an investigation, Rieff's tribute to his mother — writer Susan Sontag — explores her final battle with cancer and looks at the state of medical science and leading cancer physicians who combine treating patients with pursuing the cutting edge of research.
David Rieff is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of seven previous books, including the acclaimed At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention; A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis; and Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. He lives in New York City.
Memoirs written after the death of a loved one can either be elegies radiant with poetic inspiration or they can be self-serving eulogies. David Rieff, a thoughtful and intelligent writer, happens to be the son of Susan Sontag, one of America's most brilliant authors and essayists, a woman of great courage with the gift of exploring concepts of our society that she found in need of our attention while at the same time a being novelist able to spin meaningful tales about the indomitable human spirit. SWIMMING IN A SEA OF DEATH: A SON'S MEMOIR is far more than a rehash of an artist's life and exit from life: this book is a work of sensitive evaluation of not only a great woman but also of the myriad aspects of our healthcare system, both good and bad, and the delicate yet coarsely bumpy path that begins with the diagnosis of a terminal disease and ends with the sigh that completes mortality. From this book we learn not only the trials of Susan Sontag's battle with three attacks of cancer (breast cancer in 1975 with radical surgery and chemotherapy, uterine sarcoma in 1998, and Myelodysplastic Syndrome in 2004), but we also learn about the relationship of a son and mother and the challenges to each in coping with threatening diseases and ultimately death.
What makes this 'memoir' so different is the frank honesty of the author David Rieff. He reflects on the avid love for living that ruled Sontag's life, her refusal to give in when she felt that fighting the odds was better than the alternative of doing nothing. Rieff took on the role of supporting his mother's belief that all of the chemotherapy, mutilating surgery, radiation, bone marrow transplantation - all accompanied by severe physical and psychological pain - was worth the effort if the methods of attacking the disease process held any degree of hope of remission. It is a lesson for all of us who have dealt or are dealing with being there for loved ones who face medical decisions, times when the patient needs the support of those who care and are willing to accept the fact that the patient is very much alive - until life is no longer an option.
The reader comes away from this book with a profound respect for the spirit of Susan Sontag, the courage of her various physicians who respected her participation in her decisions, and the quiet and gentle love of a son who can now see the giant who was his mother as he passes her grave in Paris. Toward the end of this book Rieff quotes form Sontag's journals: '"I write the way I live and my life is full of quotations." Then she adds: "Change it." But she never did.' This memoir is an Elegy. Highly recommended reading.
Grady Harp
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (12 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir
Used Hardcover
David Rieff
0 stars -
0 reviews
$1.50
In Stock
Product details
180 pages
Simon & Schuster -
English9780743299466
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"At age 70, Susan Sontag was diagnosed with a virulent form of blood cancer, her third bout with cancer over the course of 30 years and one she would not win. Her son, journalist Rieff (At the Point of a Gun), accompanied her through her final illness and death, and offers an extraordinarily open, moving account of the trial and journey. Sontag's 'avidity' for life had prompted her to beat the advanced breast cancer that devastated her in 1975; she now resolved to fight the statistical odds of dying from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), despite the pessimistic prognosis from doctors. Rieff, who admits he was not close to his mother over the preceding decade, is silenced by Sontag's refusal to reconcile herself to dying and unable to console her. Both mother and son are by turns angered by doctors' infantilizing treatment of terminally ill patients and by their squelching of hope. Anxious, chronically unhappy and obsessed with gathering information about her disease, Sontag was unable to be alone, and Rieff becomes one in a circle of devotees who rotate staying with her at her New York City apartment. A doctor is found who does not believe her case is hopeless, and in Seattle she undergoes a bone-marrow transplant. In this sea of death, Sontag took her son with her — conflicted, wracked, but wrenchingly candid, Rieff attempts to swim out." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review A Day"
by Brigitte Frase, Star-Tribune,
"Swimming in a Sea of Death, Rieff's memoir of the last, excruciatingly painful months of his mother's life, is as riveting as it is unremittingly harrowing. In those months, Sontag swung between despair and stubborn hope....The irony isn't lost on Rieff that his mother, a resolute atheist, had an almost religious belief in the always onward and upward progress of scientific research." (read the entire Star-Tribune review)
"Review"
by New York Times,
"What is shocking about the memoir is how ordinary Sontag seems....For a writer who voluntarily embarks on a memoir about his mother, Rieff is curiously silent on the subject of their relationship, but the contrast in styles speaks for itself."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"Ultimately, this book presents a son trying to understand his mother's life and death and needing validation that, in the end, he did the right thing. Highly recommended."
"Review"
by Booklist,
"A beautifully formed and philosophically probing memoir of an all-out fight for life and a sons love for his mother, and a deeply moving tribute to a world-altering writer."
"Review"
by Oliver Sacks,
"Susan Sontag was fiercely, exuberantly alive, and uncompromising in her life no less than her work. David Rieff's fine, tender, and unflinching portrait of her final illness brings home her absolute determination to survive to the last — to survive against the odds and live creatively despite a devastating disease and an unproven cancer treatment. At once a report from the frontlines of experimental oncology and a moving, absorbing personal account of his mother's last illness, Swimming in a Sea of Death is a courageous and darkly beautiful book."
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"Rieff, who admits that he fears dying, writes thoughtfully about a child's duties in the time of dying. A useful handbook of a sort, as well as a concluding chapter to his mother's life."
"Review"
by Philadelphia Inquirer,
"Watching Sontag die from a distance here, seeing her strategize, strategize against the dying of the light, is to be reminded of what made her so impressive....Sontag's admirers will appreciate the son's many sharp insights into his mother."
"Review"
by Newsday,
"[Rieff] brings a certain amount of literary confidence to the writing table....[An] intelligent, provocative memoir."
"Review"
by Minneapolis Star Tribune,
"Rieff's memoir of the last, excruciatingly painful months of his mother's life, is as riveting as it is unremittingly harrowing."
"Review"
by Los Angeles Times,
"[T]here is the sadness at the heart of Rieff's testimony: that mothers die, as fathers do, regardless of what they or their children believe or disbelieve. It is our humanity that makes us mortal, not our creeds or their antitheses."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Both a memoir and an investigation, Rieff's tribute to his mother — writer Susan Sontag — explores her final battle with cancer and looks at the state of medical science and leading cancer physicians who combine treating patients with pursuing the cutting edge of research.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
