We're All Going to Die

by Leah Kaminsky

A joyful book about the necessity of celebrating life in the face of death.



The one certainty about life is that everybody is going to die. Yet somehow as a society we have come to deny this central fact - we ignore it, hoping it will go away. Ours is an aging society, where we are all living longer, healthier lives, yet we find ourselves less and less prepared for our inevitable end.



Leah Kaminsky is an award-winning writer and GP, who is confronted by death and mortality on a daily basis. She shares - and challenges - our fears of death and dying. But she also takes joy in people whose response to their imminent death is to choose, instead, to consciously embrace life. Like 90 year old Julia, a great-great-grandmother, officially an LOL in Leah's medical terminology (little old lady), who wants to compete in the Senior Olympics. Or a dying friend, who throws himself a 'pre-funeral' gig, to say goodbye to everyone he loves. As Leah says in this uplifting book, 'If we truly open ourselves up to the experiences of those directly confronted with their own mortality, maybe we will overcome our own tunnel vision and decide to live our lives more fully.'



WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE is an engaging, compassionate and compelling book about death - or more specifically, about how, by facing and accepting our coming death, we can all learn to live in a more vital, fearless and truthful way.



'This wonderful and thoughtful book ... crackles with energy, insight and imagery' Weekend Australian



'Leah Kaminsky takes death by the scruff of the neck and gives it a good shake, with often joyous consequences' Courier Mail



'Wise, illuminating and possibly life-changing' Graeme Simsion, author The Rosie Project





'Engaging ... brave ... A very useful book for anyone who plans to die' Australian Book Review



'A beautiful, brave, inspiring work. Required reading for anyone who plans to die.' Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff



'Everyone dies, and so I highly recommend Leah Kaminsky's sensitive and at times irreverent book about death to everyone.' Sandeep Jauhar, New York Times bestselling author of Doctored and Intern



'Kaminsky approaches her subject as a truth-seeker must: with courage, a keen gaze and an open mind. She's a natural storyteller, a humanist through and through, and her insights into the lives and deaths of those she writes about - patients, family and friends - are tender and deeply thoughtful. Elegantly conceived and beautifully written, We're All Going To Die affirms our imperfect lives and wisely exhorts us to live each day as if it were our last.' Jacinta Halloran, author, Pilgramage

Genres: Nonfiction, Death, Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

Published May 23, 2016

About the author

Leah Kaminsky, is a physician and award-winning writer. Her debut novel The Waiting Room won the Voss Literary Prize and was shortlisted for the Helen Asher Award. The Hollow Bones, won the 2019 International Book Awards in both Historical Fiction & Literary Fiction Categories. Doll's Eye will be published in 2023. We’re all Going to Die has been described as ‘a joyful book about death’. She edited Writer MD and co-authored Cracking the Code. Her poetry collection, Stitching Things Together, was a finalist in the Anne Elder Award. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Reviews

[Lee Kofman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant, poignant and erudite exploration of this most existential of fears - the fear of death. Very interesting angles on the toughest topic.

[Marcella Purnama · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two and a half stars. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book — it's just that I've read about the topic for quite a number of times and this book basically is all those books. I am reminded once again about life, death, and mortality, but I do think I didn't learn anything new that I haven't learned before. The reminder is good, but, well, that's it.

Ps. I've read Atul Gawande, Paul Kalanithi, Ranjana Srivastava, Caitlin Dougherty, and many other articles in the web on this topic. Watched a lot of TED Talks on death and dying too.

[Olwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this easy-to-read discussion of dying.

[Alib · Rating 3 out of 5]

I fully agree that we need to think more about death in order to get a proper perspective on life. I personally didn’t relate to the fear of death angle but did like her thoughts on end of life care and modern tendencies to fight rather than accept ageing and death.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a bit of a sucker for books about dying, they always offer a new voice about this topic, one that many of us are reluctant to talk about. The author who is a family doctor in Australia is able to talk about her own families experiences and her own fear of death, as well as talking about the patients she encounters. She uses the book to explore how death was dealt with in the past when everybody encountered death usually in the family home, and what happens in the modern world when death has become more institutionalized with more of us dying in hospitals and nursing homes. She talks to morticians and funeral directors and quotes from many authors who have written similar books.

Although I didn't come away learning anything too profound, I liked the tone of the book that made it like listening to a good friend talk and it didn't get too grim and uncomfortable. Certainly it is a topic we should all be talking about with our families and friends.

[Amy Ha · Rating 4 out of 5]

After losing 2 loved ones in less than 2 years (my Dad and my mother-in-law), I've been thinking a lot about death and grief. I knew I need to learn to make peace with the fact that unfortunately, but naturally, we're all going to die. And yet it took almost 2 years to pick up a book on the topic and confront it head on, morbid and sad as it is.
This one is quite a good book to start. And although it tends to meander at times and I'd find myself skimming a bit, it still managed to leave me feeling a lot lighter about the whole process. It makes me love life more, by simply reminding me of my own, and my loved ones', mortality. I was also prompted to get our will updated. And the daily chaos of our family life actually seems a bit more manageable, because in the schemes of things, you know...

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book covering many aspects of the taboo called death, including the many experiences of the author, a GP, who frankly and openly discusses her own profound fear of death. Being of 'mature age' I can well identify with that fear. I found some of the insights into how the medical profession in general views and deals with death especially fascinating, as doctors generally don't make those things known to the public.

The book weaves academic and anecdotal information together well, although I did find some repetition of ideas and thoughts. Hopefully it will help to foster an awareness that it's healthier to talk about our fears of death than to deny them.

[Pradipta Dirgantara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leah explores the poignancy of death and individual tragedy in an easy way as the book is also contrasting death with the joy of life. The book elaborates on how people deal with death and how their affected ones also deal with the unbearable loss. I'm deeply moved.

[Paul Faure · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good easy introduction into a subject not easily approached. Relatable with resources to explore further. Not overly inspiring but to be fair, not the premise of the book. An easy read but some dead ends...hmmm, not the best use of words perhaps

[TheOneAndOnlySam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting - I enjoyed some of the insights into life and death shared by the author, and I agreed strongly with the fact that we don't like to talk about dying or the fact that we are going to die. However, as someone who has as strong faith, I disagreed with, and struggled to understand where some of these views about death came from. I do think this book is an excellent way to get a conversation going about a sensitive topic.

[Rob O'Hearn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to sell books with a Buddhist bookshop and distributor, and I constantly recommended this to customers who were facing up to the idea of death with some fear and trepidation. I personally have not been particularly fearful of death, but Kaminsky approaches the subject with intelligence, compassion and curiosity, and writes so engagingly, that I found the book very useful anyway. My customers loved it and returned to tell me so.

[Madeleine Garfath · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone with health anxiety, this book was the most comforting novel I’ve come across. Leah perfectly describes the severity of health anxiety and how debilitating and bedevilling it is. I finished it feeling refreshed and with a broader perspective on life!

[Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jumped around a bit in a kind of disconnected way but had some interesting points and was easy to read.

[Ivana Dawe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Joyful book about death .? Nothing enlightening in this book. Maybe good for those who are on her same wavelength

[Andrew McMillen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death anxiety is a distinctly human trait, for our species alone is aware of mortality and the finite nature of lives. This fact is reflected in popular culture: consider the bucket list, a set of objectives terminally ill individuals attempt to fulfil when they know their time on this planet is limited, as if that wasn’t always the case from the moment they were born.

You are aware of this, too, even if your impending death is not on your mind every waking moment. Your ultimate deadline is growing nearer with each passing second, as your eyes pass across these words, having chosen to invest a few precious minutes in reading a newspaper review of a book about the last thing each of us will ever do.

As a family doctor, Leah Kaminsky has heard many of her patients’ bucket lists. For her, writing this wonderful and thoughtful book was a step towards staring down her own death anxiety. “I hoped that by putting pen to paper I would arrive at some sort of comfort zone, free from fear, having peeled off a protective skin layered with the debris of the past, of the ghosts I carry, of the many patients I have cared for, laughed with and fought for over the years,” she writes.

With 'We’re All Going to Die', Kaminsky establishes herself alongside Karen Hitchcock, another popular Australian doctor-writer who has managed to bridge the gap between the medical profession and laypeople by putting into words her experiences of caring for the rest of us. It is important work, for we rely on people such as Kaminsky and Hitchcock when things go wrong with our bodies and our minds, and it is to our benefit that both women are skilled and empathetic writers, too.

This book is split into a dozen chapters that focus on different aspects of our relationship with dying, such as child mortality, health anxiety, near-death experiences, living with loss, and exploring the idea of a ‘‘good death’’. Throughout these demarcations, Kaminsky liberally sprinkles in some of her own story and professional journey, beginning with this opening sentence: “Ever since I can remember I have harboured a profound fear of death.”

Her first brush with it was when an uncle died just after Kaminsky had turned 13. She wonders whether this spurred her toward a career in medicine. The ghost of her mother sits permanently in the corner of her office, “chain-smoking and telling me I should have been a lawyer”. Halfway through the book, the author reveals that her depression-prone mother overdosed on medication, choosing to end her life after her children had become young adults and left the nest.

The scars of this act have run deep through Kaminsky’s life. “It has taken me thirty years to let these words spill out on to the blank page, calling her suicide a choice, reframing her farewell as an act of defiance, a final rude finger held up to Death.” Though the topics of euthanasia and assisted dying are at last moving from the fringes of taboo towards the centre of the national conversation, words such as these are still challenging and confronting to read.

This chapter on living with loss is one of the book’s longest and most affecting, paired as it is with the notion of ‘‘transition objects’’ such as her daughter’s plush toy rabbit, Bun. Kaminsky’s daughter is now a young woman, but “Sometimes when she’s out, I tiptoe into her room and hold Bun close to my heart, breathing in his faded smell as I greedily try to recapture the past.”

The author, who published her debut novel, The Waiting Room, last year, has a deft touch with her pen, striking a dual pose of authority and warmth. The prose here crackles with energy, insight and imagery: “Each hour I lie awake, flipping from side to side like a fish dragged out of the safety of its watery home, I am an hour closer to my death.” Or: “Death has become a sterilised commodity, with most of us dying in intensive care units, the beep of the ECG machine playing us its farewell hymn.” Or: “I might have died in childbirth, a bloated whale washed up on the bloody shores of a prolonged and difficult labour.”

The challenge with a book such as 'We’re All Going to Die' is how to draw together all of these loose, interrelated threads into a neat conclusion — or at least as neat a conclusion as can be fashioned from such a messy, emotional and difficult subject. Having put pen to paper in an attempt to stare down her death anxiety, Kaminsky’s decision on where to remove the pen from the page is a suitably poignant one. I’d say more about this final scene, but then, what good is life without surprises?

Review originally published in The Weekend Australian Review, June 18 2016: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...

[Jacquie Garton-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful and uplifting book to help us live with the knowledge that we will all have to face dying and death.

Death is a topic we all need to confront, be it our own mortality or that of those we care about. And thinking and talking about death and dying is a struggle for many people. Whether you embrace the conversation or prefer to avoid any thought of death, this "joyful book about death" is a wonderful opportunity to explore how death and dying affects our lives, even when death may not be imminent.

"We're all going to die" is brought to life through Leah Kaminsky's journey with her anxiety about death as a family physician, daughter, mother, and friend, and expanded through interviews with a range of carefully selected and not always predictable experts and individuals. Leah covers a huge range of topics: ignoring death; children and death; daredevils; health anxiety; life-threatening illness and disability; near death experiences; living with loss, especially suicide; surrounding ourselves with life; euphemisms for death and the medical view of death as failure; honouring the dead; "a good death"; and the growing death movement. A gentle approach makes these serious issues immediately accessible, while examining a vast amount in many layers. The pages of my copy are already dog-eared, with a multitude of turned corners to mark sentences and passages that I want to come back to again. I am sure that when I re-read this book, I will be struck by additional insights.

At the heart of Leah's unique, refreshingly honest, respectful and beautifully expressed perspectives, and the touching stories she shares about others, are her kindness and compassion. These qualities are key to her narrative helping others to celebrate life and experience the fullest joy possible in each of our lives, whatever our circumstances and wherever we are in our relationship to death.

A “must-read” in my view and one I am already recommending to family, friends and my own patients.

[Irene Sauman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would not have chosen this book to read, except that the author is a friend of a friend and it was available as an ebook from my library. Unlike the author, I don't have a fear of death, at least not at this time in my life when I'm much closer to it at 69. I'm also a widow so not a stranger to it, either. Given the author's family background of Nazi concentration camps and her mother's death, one can readily understand her reasons for being so.
All that being said, I found the book very easy to read. I was drawn in immediately through the prologue and the author's relaxed writing style. Her own experiences as a GP and her growing awareness of how her training slanted her view on dealing with death, were very interesting. As a patient, I think seeing how doctor's view illness and disease and death can make conversations with them at these times easier. My friend, Jacquie Garton-Smith has said in her review that she would give it to her patients to read. I would add that it should also be read by all in the medical profession as well. It could enable better understanding for all concerned.
As the author points out, death was celebrated in the Victorian age, but is almost a taboo subject now. We cover it with euphemisms. The author's message is that by being aware that our lives are finite, by not shying away from it while at the same time not carrying the fact around with us like a black cloud hanging over, we can live more effectively in the time we do have. Celebrate life.
This is a book worth reading, though whether you want to read it right through, or dip into it, is another matter. I found the first half of the book about the author's own experiences and thoughts particularly interesting, but I went through the second half reading here and there. There is a lot that can be said, but it became repetitive, for me any way.

[Paulagofish · Rating 5 out of 5]

liked it, not too dark, a nice amount of personal reflection within, lots of very touching stories about the people's final journeys that the author has shared. And a couple of very brave and very personal revelations that would have taken some courage to write. Brave stuff that.

[Asha M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book raised a lot of important topics and questions to consider around end of life and the discussions we should all be having with our loved ones prior to their death. Easy to read, uplifting, and just as much about life as it was about death.

[Melinda Crumblin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a wonderful read. Sad in parts but overall very uplifting g.