Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary

by Rebecca Brown

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.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

Paperback

First published July 28, 2001

About the author

Rebecca Brown’s diverse oeuvre contains collections of essays and short stories, a fictionalized autobiography, a modern bestiary, a memoir in the guise of a medical dictionary, a libretto for a dance opera, a play, and various kinds of fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_...

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brown is a novelist from Seattle. This is an account of her mother’s death from what sounds like stomach cancer. The disease progressed quickly and her mother died at home, under hospice care, in New Mexico in 1997. As the title suggests, the brief thematic chapters are arranged around vocabulary words like “anemia” and “metastasis.” My favorite chapters were about washing: her mother’s habit of reading while taking long baths, and the ways Brown and her sister tried to care for their mother’s disintegrating body, including a plan to prepare the corpse themselves. Clinical descriptions of vomiting alternate with magical thinking to accompany her mother’s hallucinations: “You’re packed, Mom, but all of us aren’t going, just you. But you’ve got everything you need.”

Brown covers a lot of emotional ground in a very few pages, but I prefer my medical/bereavement memoirs to have more of a narrative and more detail than “when she died it was not peacefully or easy, it was hard.”

Recently reviewed, along with five other novellas, on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Marcia Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brief, exquisite memoir is a clear-eyed, intimate, and gorgeously conceived and written account of the author's experiences helping to care for her dying mother. Told in a series of brief chapters, each opening with a definition of a medical term, readers get precise descriptive observations of how cancer slowly changes the mother as well as her adult children who care for her.

It's an emotional page-turner. I read it in one sitting, rushing toward the conclusion that is both heartbreaking and totally human. Having cared for my own mother in the final months of her life, I could recognize the stages Brown goes through, always plumbing the depths of family love to give comfort her mother.

This is not a tear-jerking, manipulative, sentimental "Movie of the Week" kind of work. Rather, it is sometimes mundane, often curious, and always realistic. A wonderful tribute.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The entire essay moves toward the mother's death which occurs at the very end, rendered beautifully, with a sense of hope (quite unlike Rieff's memoir of Sontag's death) but without religiosity. Yet for me the essence of the book is stated early, on page 28, where Brown writes: "I don't remember when I stopped hoping my mother would remain alive. I go over and over this time in my head. I go over and over as if by thinking differently, as if by my remembering what was not I can remake or change what happened. I think "what if--," "what if--," "if only--." I couldn't see her dying then. I only see her start to die in retrospect. In retrospect she dies over and over again." This kills me--the story of my life! I want to scream. Maybe this is the story of everyone's life.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Even though I still cried through large portions of this book, it was an eye-opening read for me and more than just an emotional release. I've never read anything before that made me feel like that when it is time to say goodbye to my parents..that I can and will get through it. Brown's story made me feel that caring and burying one's parent(s) is doable. Horrifically sad and heart-breaking yes. But a real event that happens and can be done. So in a way it was very uplifting for me.

[Isla McKetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, painful and honest. This book has Brown's characteristic voice and gentle clarity. A good read for anyone who needs to see the through-line in care-giving.

[Agnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly written
sad & sparse & sweet

[Chris Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoir takes many forms, some of which appear as checklists, directions, or even recipes. Rebecca Brown’s Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary creates a tiny memoir around choice words that tell of her mother’s battle with cancer and the subsequent dying process in a faux-dictionary style. Each “chapter” begins with a word and its definition in relation to medicine. By composing her linear story this way, Brown creates foreboding words that foreshadow events to come, but also illuminate meaning behind those stoic medical terms.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

got this book last year or so and browsed through it but was never hooked. picked it off the shelf though to read in the icu while sitting with my father who is in dire straights with a stroke at the moment, and found great comfort and solace with this book. really honest and straightforward without being too sentimental, it touched me in a brand new way after my former browsing. perfect time for me to read it. loved it.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully measured account of the death of the author's mother from cancer, this book tells its painful story in a no-nonsense straight-ahead fashion that makes the sadness feel more present. It's a book that makes you want to be a better person to your loved ones. Or at least a person who lives life and faces death with beauty and empathy and grace.

[Wennie Hong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had Rebecca as guest writing professor during my undergrad. It wasn't until after I graduated that I finally picked up this book. I read it in one sitting and cried my eyes out. Immediately after, I called my mom to tell her I loved her. This is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. Her writing is simple, relatable, and honest.

[Keisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

difficult, but necc.

[S Katherine]

This looks fab by such an amazingly talented writer, I can't wait to read it....wish list, wish list, wish list.

[Seven · Rating 5 out of 5]

a sad lovely happy book about a daughter (her siblings) and a journey with a mother dying from/living with cancer.

[Nita · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual and intriguing structure - arranged by topic rather than chronology but still having a narrative arc. Compelling and vividly honest.

[Frankie Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

For preparation for death, yours or anyones, you should read this.

[corinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is so beautiful and stark. her writing is heartbreaking and perfect for the barren lands of grief and loss. it is a detailed portrait of accompanying a loved one through hospice care.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one writes about death and grief and family as unflinchingly as Rebecca Brown does in this book.

[Frances Dinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love your mother and haven't seen her for awhile, this book might make you cry openly in public.