Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

by Gail Godwin

From New York Times -bestselling, three-time National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin, a consideration of what makes for a life well lived―for readers of Oliver Sacks’s Gratitude and Deborah Levy’s Cost of Living .

I can't see a way out of this.
Things will not necessarily get better.
This is my life, but I may not get to do what I want in it.

Ingmar Bergman once said that an artist should always have one work between himself and death. When renowned author Gail Godwin tripped and broke her neck while watering the dogwood tree in her garden at age 85, a lifetime of writing and publishing behind her and a half-finished novel in tow, the idea quickly unfurled in front of her, forcing her to confront a creative life interrupted. In GETTING TO KNOW DEATH, Godwin shares what spoke to her while in a desperate place, remembering those she has loved and survived over the course of a long life, including a brother and father lost to suicide; finding meaning in the encounters she has with other patients as she heals; and taking stock of a life toward the end of its long, graceful arc, finding her path through the words she has written and the people she has loved.

At once beautiful, biting, precise, poetic, and propulsive, GETTING TO KNOW DEATH is her own reckoning with the meaning of a life, the forms of passion that guide it, and how the stories we hold can shape our memories and preserve our selves as we write our own endings.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Death, Audiobook, Health

192 pages, Hardcover

First published June 11, 2024

About the author

Gail Kathleen Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. She has published one non-fiction work, two collections of short stories, and eleven novels, three of which have been nominated for the National Book Award and five of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List.

Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Five of her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list.
Godwin lives and writes in Woodstock, New York.

Reviews

[Kris Springer · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were times when I felt more in tune with the author’s vision but ultimately realized that this is a book for a narrow audience—readers familiar with Godwin’s novels and life, and I don’t have that frame of reference. I came to this looking for a book about facing death that would reference her familiar but also the universal—and there wasn’t enough universal for me. For a Gail Godwin fan, I’m sure this was deeply moving but it was as if it was written in a language I don’t speak.

[Nancycampbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 85, the author goes outside to water a dogwood tree in her backyard, falls, and breaks her neck. As she rehabilitates she realizes that she's not going to return to where she was physically, and taking the advice of her therapist she decides to get to know death. But, this book is really about life, not death, and the people and places that are important. The memoir feels a bit like stream of consciousness as Godwin skips between past and present and into the works' of authors she loves. But it works. I read this in one fully engaged sitting.

[Ethan Thomason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have enjoyed this book much more if I was familiar with Gail Godwin's novels. Regardless, it's a quick, easy read and you will enjoy it if you've ever loved an old person or you aspire to be an old person yourself someday. At times the story jumps around (if you consider it a single story at all) and I wondered what the point of it all could be. Maybe this is exactly what the author is trying to convey - she has achieved great success, lived a full life, and outlived everyone on her "list". Each day becomes monotonous yet we can find joy in simply being alive. The author thrived on personal relationships and highlights the importance of continual growth as individuals and as a tribe. May we all live until such a ripe old age with the satisfaction of a life well lived!

[Edie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting to Know Death reminds me of Salman Rushdie's Knife. Both are memoirs by well-known authors following traumatic events. Both detail the recovery process, and the hardships presented by aging bodies. Godwin's narrative weaves several timelines and observations from throughout her life and career in a sometimes unwieldy tapestry. I am glad I read Getting to Know Death - there were beautiful insights sprinkled throughout but overall, if felt a bit all over the place.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always enjoyed Gail Godwins novels and as I began reading Getting to Know Death I was completely swept into her thoughts on aging and life.Following an accident in her garden her independent life changes and she shares her recovery her life changes.So thoughtful so moving.so real. #netgalley #bloomsbury

[Randy Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd book. The title is inaccurate since the writer reflects mostly on her scary experience of surviving breaking her neck and the painful recovery. She introduces us to the various people she got to know and flashes back on various relationships and books she has written. Key people die in her life and she shares about a relationship she had with a friend with whom she had a death pact which they didn’t keep.

I am sorry she didn’t explore what confronting her mortality was like, what she learned about death or what she wanted when she faced her end. Maybe at her age and in her work she has made peace with it and so she didn’t feel the need to get into any of that. Too bad because that was why I picked up a book with this title.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Tara ☆ Tarasbookshelf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting.
Perhaps one would appreciate this more fully if one were familiar with the author's work.

Dazzled and blown away by the outstanding blurb and summary of Getting to Know Death by Gail Godwin, I requested this ARC from NetGalley. I was unfortunately, neither dazzled nor blown away.

Getting to Know Death was an interesting "meditation", as these meandering, repetitive, loosely connected sets of stories seem to be called. I almost stopped reading it more than once and it's a short book. And it seemed to get weirder as I kept reading, making me wish I *had* stopped reading.

This was an introspective look into the mind of a writer on the topic of death, but in this case, I think I'll pass.



Thanks to NetGalley, Publishers and Author for access to the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book by the title - definitely an area of interest for me.

Then from the intro:
GG to Therapist: Who is Steph?

Therapist: Steph who?

GG: When I said the only place where I felt safe these days was inside my novel, you said " What if you stepped outside that place and started getting to know Steph?"

T: No, I said " death". Getting to know death.
~~~~

This clinched it for me because my name is Steph and I really love to be inside most every novel.

The personal stories about aging and dying in the first 2/3 of the book appealed more than the last part of the book.

[Connie Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

At 85, almost 86, I found this a book I thought I should read but found it a bit strange. I have loved Gail Godwin's books and so enjoyed seeing her at Kanuga years ago. But I had a hard time relating to this book.

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning memoir on facing mortality and a look back at others who faced a life altering condition (physical and mental) that made them consider how to go forward.

[Ruby Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because I love Gail Godwin's fiction, I felt compelled to read this meditation. I was not disappointed. "Getting to Know Death" is beautifully written, engaging, and insightful without being sentimental. It begins with a life-changing accident and closes expecting her eighty-sixth birthday. If Godwin chooses to write a meditation on each of her years following this one, I will gladly read them all. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
#GettingtoKnowDeath #NetGalley

[Kewltrichk757 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I really love the author Gail Godwin, this memoir was not up to par with her fiction writing. I stupidly assume that aging people are more intelligent - years of time to amass wisdom but I am always surprised that they don't see what is coming. One must recognize the limitations of what's coming next (unless you are ridiculously wealthy and have the money for all the care you need). So some of the choices made by the author seemed stupid and hard to get behind.

[Mervyn E · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually like Gail Godwin, but this is a real hodgepodge. This and that from here and there. Scattered and peppered with some interesting some less interesting and some downright boring observations. Of course, it’s hard to write about death, particularly ones own so I can see how it might be comforting to be distracted. However, overall, I found this volume to be extremely disappointing.

[Sally Ito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gail Godwin is an American novelist. I'd heard her name for the first time from an older woman friend of mine years ago. But I never actively looked up her books or heard much about her after that mention until I recently heard her interviewed on a radio program -- CBC's Ideas -- about artists and death. In the program, Godwin recounted the moment when in her 85th year, she tripped and fell just as she was about to water a dogwood tree in her garden. She just barely managed to get herself back into the house -- bum-walking -- to call the ambulance. As it turns out, she had broken her neck. And survived to write about it. And when I say 'write,' I mean it. Godwin is a writerly writer, and this book, perhaps maybe her last, garnered my deep respect for a woman at the peak of her ability to craft that good sentence, thought, or memory on the nature of her aging into death, of her previous work, and of her present situation.

Godwin quotes her husband saying of his work (he was a composer): "I used to be original. Now I try to be clear and essential." Clear and essential is what this book is. I read the book quickly and its words left enough of an impact on me that I wanted to write this review. Godwin's painful experiences of her past, in particular with the deaths of her father and brother, are related with a kind of luminosity that can only be achieved by long years of reflection. There is, too, a meditation on her grandmother, Monie, that Godwin, while admitting to ignorance of the person Monie was, yet reveals her essence nonetheless as imagined from a scene from one of her novels in which the character based on her grandmother writes a letter: "You warm this old heart the way you lavish praise on me, but I am basically just a country girl without much education who has tried to keep her dignity and make the most of the cards dealt her."

One of the interesting meditations Godwin gives is about her temporary obsession with the Jesus Seminar results. The theologians of the Jesus Seminar went through the Gospels and tried to determine which sayings of Jesus were actually said by him, and which were attributable to the Gospel writers. The sayings were color-coded into red, pink, gray and black. Red was for sayings that 'were probably his.' Pink ones 'may have suffered modification.' Gray ones 'did not originate with him but may reflect his ideas.' The black ones 'were the results of the storyteller's imagination.' to which Godwin adds, 'inauthentic.' Of course, Godwin's obsession with the Jesus Seminar results is because she is a writer of texts herself and therefore, of one who knows of what the imagination is capable. She has grasped the writer's fear of being 'inauthentic.'

Godwin made a list of her favorite Gospel stories and discovered that many of them were in the 'black' category. Some of these stories contained dialogue -- dialogue which the scholars believe was "assigned to Jesus [as the] result of the storyteller's imagination."

I suspect Godwin was dismayed to find that among her favorite stories were ones in which a narrator provided words to move the action in the story, and to witness, in effect, Jesus' action and what he would have most likely have said, given the action. These words are the sort of basics of a narrated scene. Of the Gospel stories Godwin recounts in this meditation on 'authenticity', she chooses John 21:9-14 which she narrates as "A teacher kneels on the shore to cook breakfast for his hungry disciples because he loves them. They don't dare say it's their teacher who was crucified, but nevertheless they know it's him." Godwin's description of this scene uses the word 'teacher' which we know is the translation of 'rabbi' but is also NOT the name 'Jesus' and which gives off a connotation of something quite different than say, the word 'Messiah.' The narrated scene is one of the resurrected Christ and to me it is telling that Godwin ends this meditation with simply giving us the Gospel text in its scriptural form which does not use the word 'teacher' at all but the name 'Jesus.' She has prefaced it however, with this little scene from her life at the moment:

If I had thought of it, I would have discussed this with my occupational therapist Kimberly at the rehabilitation center (whom Godwin has earlier described as having 'amassed five degrees: English, education, Bible studies, then two in physical therapy). She would be able to quote chapter and verse. And I can hear us agreeing that the glow from that fire on the shore is still burning bright and that we recognize the teacher in our midst.

Is this Godwin's way of obliquely saying she is also a fellow Christian? I think so. And perhaps this hinted-at belief is why I liked this meditation the best. It's clear, essential, and yet also crafted with artful intelligence. And it brings me, her reader, into that select circle of friends at that fire where there is ‘agreement’ and ‘recognition.’

The essentials of a novel or any story are characters, plot, setting, point of view and theme. In these meditations, Godwin narrates as only a novelist can the circumstances of her life from the fall through recovery to the eventual burying of the dogwood tree in the cycle of a story so ancient as to be embedded like a scar in the skin of the soul.

[David Garnett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gail Godwin is a wonderful novelist, and I have enjoyed reading several of them. But I did not like this non-fiction work. I came to it with certain expectations that she would have some fabulous insights about dying and death, but she didn't, at least for me. I can't recommend this book

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up. DNF @ 50%. Random and wandering. I picked this up somehow expecting it to be a collection of essays considering death and/or mourning, but this was competely different. It is just not my thing at all.

[Ruth Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love her writing but not this book.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

In photos of Godwin, her piercing blue eyes may immediately draw you in. Witness the soulful, weary expression captured in the author photo of this book: a knowing old woman, up to her broken neck with pain, life, and wisdom, not to be messed with.

But studying photos of her younger days, I’ve always been arrested by her dark, wide, menacing eyebrows, sometimes groomed into curves like sideways question marks crouching over her eyes. They suggest her inner search to confront the puzzlement of life through art.

Be warned that this short book does not contain a carefully constructed essay or a rhetorical argument trying to persuade you of this or that about death. Written after the fall at age 85 that broke her neck and led to surgery and a lengthy recovery, this book is truly a meditation, a sometimes philosophical and often deeply personal meandering through the wilderness of life’s grace and disappointments, hoping for meaning.

I had read 14 of Godwin‘s books before this one. Based on some GR reviews, familiarity with Godwin may give certain readers more reason to read this book, but I think insights abound here no matter what. I especially value Godwin’s personal disclosures of her struggles with recovery and the encroaching shadows of death. Even so, the inclusion of some of the last short chapters bewilders me: why the excerpt from her decades-old, weird and creepy essay on Beckett? why the reports of writing libretti with her now-deceased partner?

I appreciate that upon hearing that someone is taking a “class on death and dying,“ Godwin ponders the difference between the two. “Are death and dying separate things? Do they live at different addresses?” (86).

After driving by pictures of death as imagined by E. E. Cummings (“Buffalo Bill’s”) and Emily Dickinson (“Because I could not stop for death – “), Godwin pulls up to her own address of dying:

In the house of dying, specifics of the process are felt and seen and smelled. It has wheelchair ramps and rented hospital beds. The lighting is bright—too bright. There is a no-nonsense, un-lyrical, day-to-day regularity to the goings on. The medications, the lemon swabs for the mucused mouth, the noisy nebulizer for the lungs, the morphine, the visits from hospice. (88)

Quoting from a poem by her lifelong friend Pat Verhulst, to whom some of this book is addressed, Godwin notes

”Now I have to teach myself
how to climb down
into my death.” (76)

At some point we will all have to do so. This book offers thoughtful contemplation about making that final climb.

[Brice Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the ARC!

Getting to Know Death is a muted but mesmerizing reflection on the final years of a life.

The book is characterized by a kind of good-humored grief as Gail Godwin recounts the many frustrations of aging—a mind that can outpace the body, the people around her recognizing her age before she can, a body that speaks for itself when she would rather it didn’t. She never shies away from the grim reality of nearing death, and the tone remains subdued. Even so, the book itself is never grim because Godwin refuses to leave the moment she is in. There are many reflections on the past, but they serve only to deepen her occupancy in the present.

The author entertains the anxieties of mortality, allowing them to interrupt narrative flow in much the same way that your grandparents talk about their friends dying, but she always anchors these sections to the significance of the grief. It’s hard enough to live—even harder to keep living without others, as so much of a person’s selfhood is defined by their relationships. Throughout the book, Godwin keeps a running list of everyone she outlives. We see her name alongside those of her friends, paired with birth and death dates, Godwin remaining an unclosed bracket.

As such, Getting to Know Death is primarily concerned with this: What does it mean for a life to be open-ended when time is no longer in front of it? It’s an unanswerable yet unavoidable question, and Godwin graciously invites readers into her journey deep into its center.

[Jeimy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Getting to Know Death was my first encounter with Gail Godwin’s work, and it won’t be my last. I picked it up hoping to find solace for the grief I carry—not for someone who has passed, but for someone still alive yet irrevocably changed. In a way, I found that solace, though not in the form I expected.

This book is a meditation in the truest sense, winding through reflections on loved ones lost, the fragility of life after a fall that left Godwin with a broken neck, and her musings on a life lived in the shadow of literary greats. It’s an exploration of mortality and creativity that feels deeply personal yet universally resonant. Godwin’s ability to balance humor with pathos makes her reflections both sharp and tender, creating moments that feel like intimate conversations with a wise, witty friend.

I found myself lingering on certain passages, feeling both seen and challenged by Godwin’s insights. This is a book I know I’ll revisit—not only to see what I might uncover with a second reading but also to mark the lines that resonate most deeply. I’m grateful to own a physical copy, as it feels like the kind of book that will grow with me over time.

If you’re seeking a meandering, thought-provoking exploration of life, death, and the spaces in between, Godwin’s Getting to Know Death is well worth your time. It may not provide neat answers or resolutions, but it offers something far more valuable: a companion for the questions we carry.

[Rebecca Wilkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read most of Gail Godwin's books. I even re-read one a few years ago and rated it only one star. I also read in my previous review that Google says her books post 2006 are not read often. I however did read her last "novel" OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS and wrote what I think now is a pretty interesting review of it in 2021. So struggling lately for something to read I got her latest book GETTING TO KNOW DEATH. She is listed as 85 in this 2024 published book. I am 10 years her junior but occasionally read books about death. This title intrigued me as I had read someone else talking about "getting acquainted with death". By the time one is 75 they have had a least a couple times when they become "acquainted" with death. The first chapter will stick in my mind because she takes her cane and goes out to water her tree and falls in the garden. Every old person worries about this happening or should. The books covers her "recovery" from the fall. Recovery in this case like all things in old age is not a full recovery but actually moving to the next phase of life which is more decreased than the previous. It is the hard facts of aging but with pretty much the acceptance that we are forced to give this phase of life.

[LeeAnna Weaver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gail Godwin is an accomplished American writer who will be turning 88 in June. Three years ago she had a serious fall while watering a dogwood tree. After the fall, she literally dragged herself inside her home, called for an ambulance, and had the presence of mind to call a friend to look after her cat. The result of her ER exam: Godwin's neck was broken and health complications would likely prevent surgical repair. Her recovery has been long and difficult, but it's given her time to meditate on her life and its inevitable end. I chose the book because I am collecting the wisdom of people who have lived long lives. What are their thoughts about aging, dying, and what may lie beyond life on Earth? While Godwin mused on her writing accomplishments, the deaths of her best friend and her husband, she did not share deeply of her own experience with aging and facing her mortality. Sure, she finds getting older a nuisance that interferes with the quality of her daily living, but beyond that, I did not find much that satisfied my own search. I kept thinking of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which I also thought self-centered to the point of narcissism. As I read Getting to Know Death, I had the impression Godwin was more concerned with her legacy as an author than imparting how she is thinking about her own death. Hope the book is helpful for some, but it was not for me.

[Christopher Calcara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short book, under 200 pages and much of it told in someone else's words--a friend's, an author's, a family member's, a husband's...--I had never read anything by Godwin but of course now I will. This is indeed a meditation in which the author reflects on her life and relationships as she gets closer in age to death. The book I think would be lost on a young person. She visits so many experiences that an older person faces (or will face when accepting the reality of death and dying headon). She asks so many of the questions that we ask ourselves when we realize we are not immortal. The book is a sweet recollection of a life well lived. As it states early on, in the words of Ingmar Bergman, "An artist should always have one work between himself and death." It would be a shame if this were Godwin's last, but it's a very thoughtful way to go out creatively.

[Marjorie Towers · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review was written by another but it sums up my feelings:
There were times when I felt more in tune with the author’s vision but ultimately realized that this is a book for a narrow audience—readers familiar with Godwin’s novels and life, and I don’t have that frame of reference. I came to this looking for a book about facing death that would reference her familiar but also the universal—and there wasn’t enough universal for me. For a Gail Godwin fan, I’m sure this was deeply moving but it was as if it was written in a language I don’t speak.

[Jaci · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Intro] Who is Steph? ...
No, I said "death."

This got my attention at the very beginning, with a laugh. Godwin goes on to relate her accident that puts her in rehab and changes her life. Along the way, she relates memories of her husband and her best friend, Pat. There are a lot of references to her works. Enjoyable and easily done in one sitting.

p.22: "The Desperate Place" examines that place where you find yourself embedded in a situation that is yours alone and that you may be powerless to change.

[Mary Keen · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think this was my first Gail Godwin book, but title sounded interesting, and it was --except she kept going off on side stories, one quite salacious. She's obviously a very talented writer, so not sure why she felt the need to resort to IMO page fillers when her own (personally very relatable) experience was so central to her theme.

My rating is for what happened to her and her warning to anyone in her age group. I also appreciated the brevity of her book as i avoid 500 plus page tomes!

Overdrive audible @1.10 speed

[KristaM · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Read in one sitting. I had never heard of this author before but I found this book to be interesting and I couldn’t put it down. It did at times seem random but I’m assuming that if you know of her other works maybe it makes more sense. I still got something out of it even though I’ve never read anything else of hers. I am intrigued to read some of her novels now, so it was successful in that regard.

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read all of Gail Godwin's novels - starting maybe 50 years ago! And so I feel like I know
this author - so, this book seemed to fit me. She is losing strength, etc. and losing people
she loves - she is in her late 80s. I am 80. These chapters are sort of random - that also
worked for me. I am glad Godwin chose to write this sort of as a post script to her tremendous
body of work. But, not for everyone.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this in a bookstore, and immediately felt I should read it. Over the last year or so, I've lost people I loved. Perhaps this would help.

After breaking her neck at 85, Godwin looks back at her life, the people she loved, and authors she read. Remembrances of how they lived and how they died. She doesn't offer any answers, but her observations and the questions she still has.