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A Preparation for Death
'Traditional autobiography is composed after the experience has passed. I wrote this book in the very panic of the experiences that inspired it … '
In his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing - and his life changed utterly.
A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place - an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling. Studded with vivid, loving portraits of the people closest to him - his Austrian grandmother, who narrowly survived the Second World War; his mother and father, both described with heartbreakingly close attention; and his cousin Walter, whose own demons provide a striking counterpoint to the author's - it is above all a stunningly vivid and searching self-portrait: possibly the most honest book you'll ever read.
In his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing - and his life changed utterly.
A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place - an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling. Studded with vivid, loving portraits of the people closest to him - his Austrian grandmother, who narrowly survived the Second World War; his mother and father, both described with heartbreakingly close attention; and his cousin Walter, whose own demons provide a striking counterpoint to the author's - it is above all a stunningly vivid and searching self-portrait: possibly the most honest book you'll ever read.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 23, 2011
"I wrote this book in the very panic of the experiences that inspired it... it is a constant rush into the darkness of the undiscovered. I was living a hectic life and I presumed I would simply have a heart attack and die before the question of an end arose... The urgency with which I pursued honesty is, in every sentence of this book, a preparation for death."
"Hectic" doesn't begin to describe his life. Baxter's book starts off with a bang - over-dramatized, maybe, but convincing. Barely into his 30s, he has run himself into a dead end: a job he hates, alcohol abuse, a riot of raw sex, and beyond all contempt for himself. After a while, the agony begins to pall and a sort of ghostly grief fills in around the edges. By the end it's "like opening your eyes in black water."
I'm not sorry for a second that I read this. Baxter is a strong writer, confessional to a fault, often entertaining and dark dark dark. If writing is a preparation for death, what is reading? Rubbernecking?
"Hectic" doesn't begin to describe his life. Baxter's book starts off with a bang - over-dramatized, maybe, but convincing. Barely into his 30s, he has run himself into a dead end: a job he hates, alcohol abuse, a riot of raw sex, and beyond all contempt for himself. After a while, the agony begins to pall and a sort of ghostly grief fills in around the edges. By the end it's "like opening your eyes in black water."
I'm not sorry for a second that I read this. Baxter is a strong writer, confessional to a fault, often entertaining and dark dark dark. If writing is a preparation for death, what is reading? Rubbernecking?
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September 25, 2011I’ve found that memoirs are difficult to talk about in polite company: Beyond theory, how do I treat as separate entities the life and the text used to evoke that life? Yes, the “right” thing to do would be to separate the two—or to judge only the text, if it gives justice to the life—an unnatural move, in my opinion, when both are so intertwined and so essential to each other. Can I say one has had a unremarkable life, but the writing makes me breathless? Or can I say that the writing is nothing spectacular, but the life led has sent shivers through me? Or can I say that, in the space of a two hundred or so pages, I managed to see-saw between both opinions?
In his A Preparation for Death, sometime-writer Greg Baxter recorded a few years’ worth of dangerous excesses and personal decay, the climax of nearly a life’s worth of disillusionment. There is a lot of bad juju going on in here, and we witness Baxter’s crumbling: how he’s making a mess of work, his family, his liver, his lungs, and more than a handful of sexual encounters. This isn’t the high life, no—Baxter is so out of it that he can’t even seem to consider enjoying himself.
If anything, the life he led is a decadence so profane [or deliberately profaned] that it had such the potential to kick me in the solar plexus—but then Baxter decided to do a disservice to himself, making him, well, loser-ly. Although Baxter’s honesty is laudable—if only more writers could be so brave, so ruthless to themselves!—overall, the book feels like a desperate attempt to structure his ennui. It’s a life both blah and unbelievably decadent, a dichotomy he failed to capture in his writing.
Two voices here, then. First, the one-tone brusque pathetic-ness that was like sludge: I found that I was not interested in his life of monotony when he couldn’t strike a balance between a voice that reflects the experience and a voice that invites the reader to stay with him—any reader at all, regardless of whether that reader would end up liking this book or not. Such dispassion! It would have been chilling if Baxter managed to convey—categorically—that this dispassion has bled through every facet of his life, that of course it would be in his autobiography.
Moreover, in this kind of life, it’s unsettling to have such a no-nonsense exposition. But it’s damnable when it repeatedly gives way to [the second voice:] moments of Utterance, the I will say something quotable, and I will intone it thus. I loved those moments at first, because I like words—but eventually, with the monotonous debauchery, the I am not even interested in my own life kind of telling, the sudden appearance of a Grand Statement About Life was just so goddamned annoying.
Okay, then, okay. Yes, Baxter has led a crappy life—but that doesn’t bother me. Yes, Baxter has railed at literature, consider himself among its rotten fruit—but that doesn’t bother me. Yes, there is a lot of drinking and cigarettes and sex and lackluster living—but that doesn’t bother me.
That he resolved to disclose the darkest aspects of his life and risked the judgment of multitudes—that he’s peppered his autobiography with manifestos both hardy and hollow—that he rallied against writing using writing itself as his weapon—only to end up with a disparate and still lackluster attempt to bring dignity to his pathetic-ness, only to fail to write the best way that he can to give justice to such an honest venture—that is what bothers me.
In his A Preparation for Death, sometime-writer Greg Baxter recorded a few years’ worth of dangerous excesses and personal decay, the climax of nearly a life’s worth of disillusionment. There is a lot of bad juju going on in here, and we witness Baxter’s crumbling: how he’s making a mess of work, his family, his liver, his lungs, and more than a handful of sexual encounters. This isn’t the high life, no—Baxter is so out of it that he can’t even seem to consider enjoying himself.
If anything, the life he led is a decadence so profane [or deliberately profaned] that it had such the potential to kick me in the solar plexus—but then Baxter decided to do a disservice to himself, making him, well, loser-ly. Although Baxter’s honesty is laudable—if only more writers could be so brave, so ruthless to themselves!—overall, the book feels like a desperate attempt to structure his ennui. It’s a life both blah and unbelievably decadent, a dichotomy he failed to capture in his writing.
Two voices here, then. First, the one-tone brusque pathetic-ness that was like sludge: I found that I was not interested in his life of monotony when he couldn’t strike a balance between a voice that reflects the experience and a voice that invites the reader to stay with him—any reader at all, regardless of whether that reader would end up liking this book or not. Such dispassion! It would have been chilling if Baxter managed to convey—categorically—that this dispassion has bled through every facet of his life, that of course it would be in his autobiography.
Moreover, in this kind of life, it’s unsettling to have such a no-nonsense exposition. But it’s damnable when it repeatedly gives way to [the second voice:] moments of Utterance, the I will say something quotable, and I will intone it thus. I loved those moments at first, because I like words—but eventually, with the monotonous debauchery, the I am not even interested in my own life kind of telling, the sudden appearance of a Grand Statement About Life was just so goddamned annoying.
Okay, then, okay. Yes, Baxter has led a crappy life—but that doesn’t bother me. Yes, Baxter has railed at literature, consider himself among its rotten fruit—but that doesn’t bother me. Yes, there is a lot of drinking and cigarettes and sex and lackluster living—but that doesn’t bother me.
That he resolved to disclose the darkest aspects of his life and risked the judgment of multitudes—that he’s peppered his autobiography with manifestos both hardy and hollow—that he rallied against writing using writing itself as his weapon—only to end up with a disparate and still lackluster attempt to bring dignity to his pathetic-ness, only to fail to write the best way that he can to give justice to such an honest venture—that is what bothers me.
July 31, 2021
I found this book, tattered, marked, read a hundred times over and bought it for the equivalent of 3 dollars at a non-governmental organisation that gets books for free from the United Kingdom/Germany (DAP) one hot Saturday in Blantyre-Malawi. Each year since then, this was around 2014 I have read this book by a hilarious man, who is bored with creative writing classes, feels terrible at writing, writes about writing in a passionate technique tells us of his days. He has no secrets: when she leaves the house it is like a tornado, it starts off with her brushing her hair slowly, showers, eats and everything is at peace; and then all of sudden it is her rushing up-and-down, looking for her keys, and then she is out of the door. . . Coupled with Stephen Fry's courses on literary theory provided by Yale Open Courses, and Greg Baxter this is really what I do when I cannot sleep. When its pages started to tear up beyond recognition I donated it to a second-hand shop at the outskirts of Uppsala in the industrial town (it honestly just became too much lol).
July 31, 2022
Very self indulgent, but then the narrator is honest enough to present himself as selfish and self-centred. Not very appealing.
February 21, 2015
I’ve always been slightly wary of autobiographies that are written whilst the subject is still relatively young. They can often feel incomplete, particularly when you know the author is still successful in their chosen career. Frequently they are also written from an immediate perspective which time can alter thanks to hindsight.
All this aside, I was quite looking forward to Greg Baxter’s ‘’A Preparation for Death’’, which seemed to promise slightly different from many autobiographies which seem designed largely to toast the success of the writer. Greg Baxter, on the other hand, is not a success, at least not in the terms by which he measures success. He’s stuck in a house in Dublin he’s not happy with but can’t sell due to negative equity and in a job he hates as a journalist on a medical paper instead of a published novelist.
‘’A Preparation For Death’’ certainly offers something different from your average autobiography. Whereas most writers want to cast themselves in the best possible light and trumpet their achievements, Baxter faces his own lack of success and disillusionment with how his life has turned out head on. Whilst his bravery and honesty is to be applauded, it does make for a slightly depressing and sometimes difficult read.
It’s not that it’s a badly written book that causes the difficulty. There are several apt metaphors and similes and lovely pieces of imagery that step out of the general darkness of the narrative like the sun breaking through the clouds. There is also a surprising switch into a diary format for one chapter that comes as a welcome surprise in terms of style, although it doesn’t offer much new in terms of the general attitude of the book.
This attitude for me is what makes ‘’A Preparation for Death’’ a difficult read. Whilst Baxter does manage to find some enthusiasm within him at points, these are most often when he is talking about other people. His tone lightens noticeably when he talks about his grandmother and the efforts she made in escaping from Nazi occupied Vienna, even more so than when something positive happens to him late on. For the most part, however, Baxter focuses on the present and the paths he has taken to reach there and as he’s not happy with how his life has turned out the majority of the book is mildly depressing and the disappointment he feels leaches through into the reading experience.
Ultimately, ‘’A Preparation for Death’’ is not an entirely unrewarding read, but I did find it a struggle at a number of points. It’s not the writing style, but the subject matter that causes the problem. This is not a comfortable read and not an easy book to get into and read large chunks of in one sitting. It’s not a bad book, it’s just a little uncomfortable and disappointing.
This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
All this aside, I was quite looking forward to Greg Baxter’s ‘’A Preparation for Death’’, which seemed to promise slightly different from many autobiographies which seem designed largely to toast the success of the writer. Greg Baxter, on the other hand, is not a success, at least not in the terms by which he measures success. He’s stuck in a house in Dublin he’s not happy with but can’t sell due to negative equity and in a job he hates as a journalist on a medical paper instead of a published novelist.
‘’A Preparation For Death’’ certainly offers something different from your average autobiography. Whereas most writers want to cast themselves in the best possible light and trumpet their achievements, Baxter faces his own lack of success and disillusionment with how his life has turned out head on. Whilst his bravery and honesty is to be applauded, it does make for a slightly depressing and sometimes difficult read.
It’s not that it’s a badly written book that causes the difficulty. There are several apt metaphors and similes and lovely pieces of imagery that step out of the general darkness of the narrative like the sun breaking through the clouds. There is also a surprising switch into a diary format for one chapter that comes as a welcome surprise in terms of style, although it doesn’t offer much new in terms of the general attitude of the book.
This attitude for me is what makes ‘’A Preparation for Death’’ a difficult read. Whilst Baxter does manage to find some enthusiasm within him at points, these are most often when he is talking about other people. His tone lightens noticeably when he talks about his grandmother and the efforts she made in escaping from Nazi occupied Vienna, even more so than when something positive happens to him late on. For the most part, however, Baxter focuses on the present and the paths he has taken to reach there and as he’s not happy with how his life has turned out the majority of the book is mildly depressing and the disappointment he feels leaches through into the reading experience.
Ultimately, ‘’A Preparation for Death’’ is not an entirely unrewarding read, but I did find it a struggle at a number of points. It’s not the writing style, but the subject matter that causes the problem. This is not a comfortable read and not an easy book to get into and read large chunks of in one sitting. It’s not a bad book, it’s just a little uncomfortable and disappointing.
This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
August 18, 2012
I've marked this as 'read', because I've returned it to the library and I'm not going to read any more, but I haven't finished it. I didn't like it at all. The writing was plain and clumsy, and the narrator very unpleasant. When he started the detailed description of his sleeping around, I quit.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews