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Life Events
A woman at a crossroads learns the only way to reclaim her life is to help others die
What if Evelyn's whole life has been a mistake? At 37, she's on the verge of divorce and anxiously awaiting everyone she loves dying on her. She combats her existential crisis by avoiding her husband and wandering the freeways of California looking for an escape before discovering a collective of exit guides. Evelyn enrolls in training courses where she learns to provide companionship and a final exit for terminally ill patients looking for a conscious departure.
She meets Daphne, a dying woman still full of life; Lawrence, an aging porn king; and Daniel, who seems too young to die, and whom she can't help but fall for. Each client allows her a chance to access her own grief and confront the self-destructive ways she suppresses her pain. When Evelyn travels through the Southwest to an afterlife convention, she must finally face her complicated relationship with her alcoholic father and reckon with her life choices.
Life Events is about planning your next phase when you see your past as a failure and your future as an impossible obligation. Sensitively observed and darkly funny, Karolina Waclawiak's breakout novel follows a woman searching for answers and intimacy while facing profound questions about how we live and die today.
What if Evelyn's whole life has been a mistake? At 37, she's on the verge of divorce and anxiously awaiting everyone she loves dying on her. She combats her existential crisis by avoiding her husband and wandering the freeways of California looking for an escape before discovering a collective of exit guides. Evelyn enrolls in training courses where she learns to provide companionship and a final exit for terminally ill patients looking for a conscious departure.
She meets Daphne, a dying woman still full of life; Lawrence, an aging porn king; and Daniel, who seems too young to die, and whom she can't help but fall for. Each client allows her a chance to access her own grief and confront the self-destructive ways she suppresses her pain. When Evelyn travels through the Southwest to an afterlife convention, she must finally face her complicated relationship with her alcoholic father and reckon with her life choices.
Life Events is about planning your next phase when you see your past as a failure and your future as an impossible obligation. Sensitively observed and darkly funny, Karolina Waclawiak's breakout novel follows a woman searching for answers and intimacy while facing profound questions about how we live and die today.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published July 28, 2020
55 people are currently reading
2557 people want to read
About the author
Karolina Waclawiak
5 books100 followersKarolina Waclawiak is the author of the critically acclaimed novels How to Get Into the Twin Palms and THE INVADERS.
Her third novel, Life Events, will be published by FSG on May 19, 2020.
AWOL, a feature she co-wrote with Deb Shoval, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and has received praise from The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Marie Claire, and more.
Formerly an editor at the Believer, she is now the Executive Editor, Culture at BuzzFeed News.
Karolina received her BFA in Screenwriting from USC and her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, VQR, the Believer, Hazlitt, and other publications.
www.karolinawaclawiak.com
Her third novel, Life Events, will be published by FSG on May 19, 2020.
AWOL, a feature she co-wrote with Deb Shoval, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and has received praise from The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Marie Claire, and more.
Formerly an editor at the Believer, she is now the Executive Editor, Culture at BuzzFeed News.
Karolina received her BFA in Screenwriting from USC and her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, VQR, the Believer, Hazlitt, and other publications.
www.karolinawaclawiak.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
February 21, 2021
4.5 stars
"It was just me, alone, with the sun beating down and the lonesome cooing of doves. Here I thought of all the people looking for answers - those of us who could not piece together a sense of order in any other way." -- Evelyn, regarding her latest sojourn into the desert, on page 217
Though we're only scant weeks into this calendar year I think that Waclawiak's Life Events is, next to Jeff W. Bens' The Mighty Oak, the most original of recently published work that I've read in months. However, it will also be a divisive book - it'd be great to send out a score of 'recs' on this one to the GR friends, but the protagonist will either be thought of as relatable or as a drip - no middle ground.
As for me, thirty-seven year-old Evelyn got under my skin . . . but in a good way. Author Waclawiak has crafted a wonderfully imperfect protagonist - she works in an unfulfilling job, is in a marriage that has run its course, her elderly ailing parents likely only have a few years left to live, and seems to have difficulty with any sort of interactions / relationships. She is prone to hit the freeways out of L.A. and solo journey into the desert to collect her thoughts and mull over her choices. Yet Evelyn is not actively trying to be a bad person, and as her story opens she is making some radical changes in her static life. She files for divorce (and, thankfully and pleasantly, her husband Bobby is depicted as a decent guy - they remain on friendly terms) and she trains for an unusual new job as an 'exit guide' - a contracted case worker/companion for a terminally ill person ending their life on their own terms.
We follow Evelyn as she is assigned (not simultaneously) her initial three cases - a vivacious elderly widow, a divorced former pornographic movie director, and an obstinate forty-ish single man - and how she is impacted by and responds to these diverse personalities. Again, this main character or story will not be for everyone, but I felt a certain kinship to the fictional Evelyn, and it was a unique experience to follow along on her appointments. The only fault I really found with the book was the lack of a solid ending, but otherwise it was an offbeat yet sometimes moving story about 'life.'
"It was just me, alone, with the sun beating down and the lonesome cooing of doves. Here I thought of all the people looking for answers - those of us who could not piece together a sense of order in any other way." -- Evelyn, regarding her latest sojourn into the desert, on page 217
Though we're only scant weeks into this calendar year I think that Waclawiak's Life Events is, next to Jeff W. Bens' The Mighty Oak, the most original of recently published work that I've read in months. However, it will also be a divisive book - it'd be great to send out a score of 'recs' on this one to the GR friends, but the protagonist will either be thought of as relatable or as a drip - no middle ground.
As for me, thirty-seven year-old Evelyn got under my skin . . . but in a good way. Author Waclawiak has crafted a wonderfully imperfect protagonist - she works in an unfulfilling job, is in a marriage that has run its course, her elderly ailing parents likely only have a few years left to live, and seems to have difficulty with any sort of interactions / relationships. She is prone to hit the freeways out of L.A. and solo journey into the desert to collect her thoughts and mull over her choices. Yet Evelyn is not actively trying to be a bad person, and as her story opens she is making some radical changes in her static life. She files for divorce (and, thankfully and pleasantly, her husband Bobby is depicted as a decent guy - they remain on friendly terms) and she trains for an unusual new job as an 'exit guide' - a contracted case worker/companion for a terminally ill person ending their life on their own terms.
We follow Evelyn as she is assigned (not simultaneously) her initial three cases - a vivacious elderly widow, a divorced former pornographic movie director, and an obstinate forty-ish single man - and how she is impacted by and responds to these diverse personalities. Again, this main character or story will not be for everyone, but I felt a certain kinship to the fictional Evelyn, and it was a unique experience to follow along on her appointments. The only fault I really found with the book was the lack of a solid ending, but otherwise it was an offbeat yet sometimes moving story about 'life.'
January 19, 2020
This existential, doom and loss filled novel served as a week long therapist while I read along through choked breath to a story that doesn’t bring to light the tough topics we all avoid in life, it shines a fucking floodlight on them, and blinds the reader trapping your heart like a deer in the proverbial headlights. Karolina Waclawiak has created a fictionalized account of what we all need to hear, life is fleeting, we are all dying, we must all embrace this and come to terms with the blatant truth that plagues all the darkest corners of our consciences. She also really lays into us with the overwhelming loneliness we feel, both within a relationship and outside of one, the beginning and the endings. This book made me think about death and loss in ways I never had, while also making me realize in order to be content with death, you must truly experience life
.
The book centers around Evelyn a 37 year old masochist who is at a crossroads, she is tired of her marriage and its collapsing and ending infront of her. Evelyn is obsessed with the imminent death of her parents, her father sooner than later as she reckons with his constant alcohol addiction and utter lack of care for life or death. Constantly roaming the desert roads and lost she finds a collective the serves as “exit guides” to people who are ill and wishing to peacefully and respectfully die. She meets three people who shape her life as they in turn are dying. An old woman who despite her age is full of life left to live, an aging porn director who has seen better days and is ready to call it quits, and finally a man closer to her age who on the outside seems healthy and happy, but is slowly dying. Each character cuts deeper into Evelyn as everything comes spiraling together
.
Evelyn faces her preemptive fears of failure and a life unfulfilled by staring at death through the eyes of those she’s surrounded herself with. She reckons with what it’s like to be lonely and happy, to not feel a disgrace, a true martyr for our own impulsive feelings. A harrowing novel that will open your heart and eyes to what our purpose here on earth is, a tough gut wrenching beautiful depiction of what we all need to hear but neglect to listen to. A faultless insight into these dire Life Events.
.
The book centers around Evelyn a 37 year old masochist who is at a crossroads, she is tired of her marriage and its collapsing and ending infront of her. Evelyn is obsessed with the imminent death of her parents, her father sooner than later as she reckons with his constant alcohol addiction and utter lack of care for life or death. Constantly roaming the desert roads and lost she finds a collective the serves as “exit guides” to people who are ill and wishing to peacefully and respectfully die. She meets three people who shape her life as they in turn are dying. An old woman who despite her age is full of life left to live, an aging porn director who has seen better days and is ready to call it quits, and finally a man closer to her age who on the outside seems healthy and happy, but is slowly dying. Each character cuts deeper into Evelyn as everything comes spiraling together
.
Evelyn faces her preemptive fears of failure and a life unfulfilled by staring at death through the eyes of those she’s surrounded herself with. She reckons with what it’s like to be lonely and happy, to not feel a disgrace, a true martyr for our own impulsive feelings. A harrowing novel that will open your heart and eyes to what our purpose here on earth is, a tough gut wrenching beautiful depiction of what we all need to hear but neglect to listen to. A faultless insight into these dire Life Events.
July 29, 2020
2.5 stars rounded up. I felt like I was missing something. It’s an interesting premise, and one that I normally wouldn’t shy away from. But this is the wrong time for me to be reading a book about dying with dignity. It was especially bad because I didn’t like the protagonist, as I thought she was entirely wrong for the job. To me she came across as an emotional vampire. I get that no reasonable person can get immune to death, but with Evelyn, it was more about her than it was about the dying people. This is all about Evelyn kind of coming to terms with herself, a journey she accomplishes by easing and/or witnessing the deaths of two and a half strangers. ().
The book was riveting, I’d give it that. It’s also exquisitely written. But the whole thing just made me upset. I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but here it is again: maybe if I hadn’t read this during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d have been a little more sympathetic towards a person like Evelyn. We get to know as the book goes on that her hang ups are not entirely hers alone - she has her father to thank for that. But I’d rather she just went to therapy for it, instead of working as a euthanasia helper. This review is confused, because I cannot put into words exactly what it was that revolted me. But this is the truth, it did revolt me.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
The book was riveting, I’d give it that. It’s also exquisitely written. But the whole thing just made me upset. I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but here it is again: maybe if I hadn’t read this during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d have been a little more sympathetic towards a person like Evelyn. We get to know as the book goes on that her hang ups are not entirely hers alone - she has her father to thank for that. But I’d rather she just went to therapy for it, instead of working as a euthanasia helper. This review is confused, because I cannot put into words exactly what it was that revolted me. But this is the truth, it did revolt me.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
November 29, 2020
This was our script, and it soon spiraled into familiar territory, which ended in his sleeping on the couch and my staring at the ceiling alone in our bedroom. My first instinct was usually to fix, to make him happy, to take it back, and also to berate myself quietly for being a broken person who could not be a productive part of a unit. But this time I didn't do any of those things.
Evelyn is newly unemployed and her marriage is dying. She spends her free time on-line, reading articles and message boards about grief. She also trains to be a grief counselor, helping people and their loved ones through assisted suicide. She's not sure why she feels compelled to pre-grieve when she's never had a family member die. As she drives around greater Los Angeles, learning to help people die and remembering events from her marriage and her childhood, she feels like she's just drifting, but really she's moving forward.
This is a thoughtful, quiet novel that seems to be spinning its wheels for much of the novel, until all the pieces fall into place. Evelyn seems like she's going to start careening from disaster to disaster, when what's happening is that she's figuring out how to live. This novel snuck up on me, taking its time before pulling me entirely into Evelyn's world.
Evelyn is newly unemployed and her marriage is dying. She spends her free time on-line, reading articles and message boards about grief. She also trains to be a grief counselor, helping people and their loved ones through assisted suicide. She's not sure why she feels compelled to pre-grieve when she's never had a family member die. As she drives around greater Los Angeles, learning to help people die and remembering events from her marriage and her childhood, she feels like she's just drifting, but really she's moving forward.
This is a thoughtful, quiet novel that seems to be spinning its wheels for much of the novel, until all the pieces fall into place. Evelyn seems like she's going to start careening from disaster to disaster, when what's happening is that she's figuring out how to live. This novel snuck up on me, taking its time before pulling me entirely into Evelyn's world.
July 15, 2020
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Evelyn is running on empty. Comforted by ghost towns she drives through, as she avoids confronting adulthood and the strained relationship with her husband, what she doesn’t realize is the real burned out world is the one living under her skin- worse, it’s of her own construction. Tormented by her thoughts she finds solace joining a group. Under the training of leader Bethany, thirty-seven-year old Evelyn is on her way to becoming an exit-guide; a job helping people die consciously. In this program trainees are urged to be vulnerable, honest, raw with themselves and each other. For Evelyn, who spends her waking moments avoiding confronting anything that causes her pain, it is a jarring experience. How does one face their days knowing that their loved ones, like her parents, could one day disappear? Also on the verge of death is her marriage to Bobby. Constant to nothing, Evelyn can’t seem to figure out what she should be doing, anymore than she can understand her own emotions. Could Bobby be right about her inability to stick with anything? It is her desperate hope that death can give her life definition.
It isn’t the fear of her own annihilation (death) that terrifies her but of those she loves dying around her, a permanent abandonment. But there are bigger voids within her and inertia that keeps her from making grown-up decisions about which direction to go. She discovers there are no shortcuts through grief anymore than there are shortcuts through healing. Therapy has failed to give her the introspection that this new job venture seems to be providing. One of the helpers (Nathan) has been out in the field, enriched by it, enthusiastic, giving her encouragement assuring her she would be a perfect fit but she feels she cannot open up like the others and worse, she is attracted to him. Bobby can’t relate to her decision, after-all Evelyn has nothing to grieve, unless you count the possibility of one day having something to mourn.
Can Evelyn stop being an observer in her own life? When she meets her first client, Daphne, a sixty-four year old woman with Stage 4 breast cancer and the other clients that follow, she learns that life is made up of the ‘out-of-control things’. None of the clients look or behave as she expects, in fact often look very much alive. Daniel is too young to be dying and just like with Nathan, she is drawn to him too. What will they teach her? That acceptance isn’t necessarily defeat, particularly if one can still have the freedom of choices, even through great illness and loss. Evelyn has spent too much time half-in, as if by not allowing herself to feel fully, to open up, she is staving off pain and grief.
Evelyn is a woman in crisis, troubled that she can’t feel immediate warmth and intimacy as if something is wrong with her, some deep flaw, when really she is feeling too much- fear, loneliness, guilt, desire and shame. Shame that she is nothing but a failure, suspicious of lives variables in relationships, sure that she has too often strayed from being loyal to herself, her own needs. Like most people, she struggles to define herself, to find meaning in life but is it found in roles, through other people, if so- what happens when they are no longer here? Why does Evelyn still feel like a child, unable to have her life and all it’s pieces put together?
Then there is the strain of the relationship with her alcoholic father. The ever present question- why? Why do we do the destructive things we do, to ourselves, to others and why can’t we stop? Maybe there are no revelations in life and in spite of this we must be strong enough to carry on, thrive even through the pain of our darkest days. Fear is nothing new, it is a thinking creature’s price for being alive. Evelyn’s choice of becoming an exit guide when she is terrified of losing people herself is peculiar. She is stunted but the picture becomes clearer, how she got to this point, in understanding the complicated relationship between she and her ill father. Perfect read for anyone who has ever worked themselves into hysterics contemplating life and it’s meaning, or lack thereof. Sometimes when you look too closely you miss the meaning. How can you understand yourself or others if you won’t go all in? The problem for Evelyn is… how?
Publication Date: July 28, 2020
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Evelyn is running on empty. Comforted by ghost towns she drives through, as she avoids confronting adulthood and the strained relationship with her husband, what she doesn’t realize is the real burned out world is the one living under her skin- worse, it’s of her own construction. Tormented by her thoughts she finds solace joining a group. Under the training of leader Bethany, thirty-seven-year old Evelyn is on her way to becoming an exit-guide; a job helping people die consciously. In this program trainees are urged to be vulnerable, honest, raw with themselves and each other. For Evelyn, who spends her waking moments avoiding confronting anything that causes her pain, it is a jarring experience. How does one face their days knowing that their loved ones, like her parents, could one day disappear? Also on the verge of death is her marriage to Bobby. Constant to nothing, Evelyn can’t seem to figure out what she should be doing, anymore than she can understand her own emotions. Could Bobby be right about her inability to stick with anything? It is her desperate hope that death can give her life definition.
It isn’t the fear of her own annihilation (death) that terrifies her but of those she loves dying around her, a permanent abandonment. But there are bigger voids within her and inertia that keeps her from making grown-up decisions about which direction to go. She discovers there are no shortcuts through grief anymore than there are shortcuts through healing. Therapy has failed to give her the introspection that this new job venture seems to be providing. One of the helpers (Nathan) has been out in the field, enriched by it, enthusiastic, giving her encouragement assuring her she would be a perfect fit but she feels she cannot open up like the others and worse, she is attracted to him. Bobby can’t relate to her decision, after-all Evelyn has nothing to grieve, unless you count the possibility of one day having something to mourn.
Can Evelyn stop being an observer in her own life? When she meets her first client, Daphne, a sixty-four year old woman with Stage 4 breast cancer and the other clients that follow, she learns that life is made up of the ‘out-of-control things’. None of the clients look or behave as she expects, in fact often look very much alive. Daniel is too young to be dying and just like with Nathan, she is drawn to him too. What will they teach her? That acceptance isn’t necessarily defeat, particularly if one can still have the freedom of choices, even through great illness and loss. Evelyn has spent too much time half-in, as if by not allowing herself to feel fully, to open up, she is staving off pain and grief.
Evelyn is a woman in crisis, troubled that she can’t feel immediate warmth and intimacy as if something is wrong with her, some deep flaw, when really she is feeling too much- fear, loneliness, guilt, desire and shame. Shame that she is nothing but a failure, suspicious of lives variables in relationships, sure that she has too often strayed from being loyal to herself, her own needs. Like most people, she struggles to define herself, to find meaning in life but is it found in roles, through other people, if so- what happens when they are no longer here? Why does Evelyn still feel like a child, unable to have her life and all it’s pieces put together?
Then there is the strain of the relationship with her alcoholic father. The ever present question- why? Why do we do the destructive things we do, to ourselves, to others and why can’t we stop? Maybe there are no revelations in life and in spite of this we must be strong enough to carry on, thrive even through the pain of our darkest days. Fear is nothing new, it is a thinking creature’s price for being alive. Evelyn’s choice of becoming an exit guide when she is terrified of losing people herself is peculiar. She is stunted but the picture becomes clearer, how she got to this point, in understanding the complicated relationship between she and her ill father. Perfect read for anyone who has ever worked themselves into hysterics contemplating life and it’s meaning, or lack thereof. Sometimes when you look too closely you miss the meaning. How can you understand yourself or others if you won’t go all in? The problem for Evelyn is… how?
Publication Date: July 28, 2020
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
August 3, 2020
Disappointed. This story suffers from a rudderless central character with an unspecified personal need or objective. Facing death, letting go, embracing change, navigating grief, accepting ourselves as being worthy of love -- all are meaningful themes. But I found it difficult to emotionally invest in the main character. Her desires "to find myself," to "find out who I really am" or "what do I want?" or "I am running away from myself" may be true to life but are way too vague to anchor a novel. The lessons she learns seem trite to me. Was hoping for something richer.
April 8, 2023
This book was a pleasant surprise. I had my eye on it for a while and finally picked it up, not expecting much. But this turned out to be a gripping and intriguing read that explored ideas of death, purpose, meaning, and connection. For fans of complex anti-heroine female characters this is one to add to your list.
August 21, 2020
All the way through this book, I had a strange sense that it was written for me. I gobbled it up and plan to read it again soon. I don't know whether it's for everyone, but it was amazingly perceptive for me. Now I can't decide whether to find her earlier novels or let this one stand alone.
November 19, 2020
Here's a snatch from a review that I read, thinking, "Oh, that's why I'm having so much trouble with this book. The reviewer is exactly right:
Waclawiak accomplishes a brilliant feat here, creating an atmosphere of almost palpable, effortful dullness that presides over the entire novel. With so much opportunity for raw emotion, the author seems to avoid it at all cost, going for exceptional clarity instead.
In the absence of any real emotional attachment to the characters, the reader is forced instead to engage intellectually, to actually face the tough questions about our own inevitable death.
In the novel, the death doulas have to make sure that their patients make an informed decision rather than an emotional one; so as part of their training, they have to fill out the same questionnaires they give to their patients. In these passages the reader can’t help pausing and applying the questions to herself. One of the toughest questions asks what degree of livelihood constitutes a life worth living, on a scale from 100 percent (full health) to 0 percent (death). “By 60 percent, mobility was reduced and disease was significant,” Evelyn explains with clinical matter-of-factness. “Consciousness could waver between full, drowsy and confused.”
Now, I've finished. I almost didn't continue. Not a "satisfying" book, or one you can sink into. It's incredibly disturbing, and I almost quit several times. I didn't and the end was completely unexpected for me. It was the story of a woman grieving her own childhood, her own marriage, and thinking she could take care of this pain by helping other dying people, since of course, she too was a dying person. We all are. The book is definitely "flat" and matter of fact, but that was the emotional tenor in which the main character, Evelyn, exists. It's actually so complicated, and so connected to each of us in important ways. It's about pain, and how we experience, and endure it, about love and how it damages us because each of us is imperfect, and imperfectly loved.
Even though, at times, I hated this book, I will read it again. It was an emotional mind-fuck. It did me in. Utterly believable and heartbreaking. It's strange. I didn't realize that I was going to read two books about death doula's in such a short time. And now I'm reading Caiolinn Hughes book about an Irish father who is dying an excruciating death from lung cancer and wants his sons to help him die. Maybe assisted death was the theme for that particular week's NYT book review section. Glad I've also started to reread The Anthropologist by Nicholson Baker. That has me laughing out loud.
I marked three passages to copy, but when I reread them now, I don't see any reason to copy them. It's not any one passage, it's the cumulative effect of the book that is so devastating. It's devastating in a way that is pervasive. It's about a broken person and her attempts to heal herself by helping people who want to die, die.
Waclawiak accomplishes a brilliant feat here, creating an atmosphere of almost palpable, effortful dullness that presides over the entire novel. With so much opportunity for raw emotion, the author seems to avoid it at all cost, going for exceptional clarity instead.
In the absence of any real emotional attachment to the characters, the reader is forced instead to engage intellectually, to actually face the tough questions about our own inevitable death.
In the novel, the death doulas have to make sure that their patients make an informed decision rather than an emotional one; so as part of their training, they have to fill out the same questionnaires they give to their patients. In these passages the reader can’t help pausing and applying the questions to herself. One of the toughest questions asks what degree of livelihood constitutes a life worth living, on a scale from 100 percent (full health) to 0 percent (death). “By 60 percent, mobility was reduced and disease was significant,” Evelyn explains with clinical matter-of-factness. “Consciousness could waver between full, drowsy and confused.”
Now, I've finished. I almost didn't continue. Not a "satisfying" book, or one you can sink into. It's incredibly disturbing, and I almost quit several times. I didn't and the end was completely unexpected for me. It was the story of a woman grieving her own childhood, her own marriage, and thinking she could take care of this pain by helping other dying people, since of course, she too was a dying person. We all are. The book is definitely "flat" and matter of fact, but that was the emotional tenor in which the main character, Evelyn, exists. It's actually so complicated, and so connected to each of us in important ways. It's about pain, and how we experience, and endure it, about love and how it damages us because each of us is imperfect, and imperfectly loved.
Even though, at times, I hated this book, I will read it again. It was an emotional mind-fuck. It did me in. Utterly believable and heartbreaking. It's strange. I didn't realize that I was going to read two books about death doula's in such a short time. And now I'm reading Caiolinn Hughes book about an Irish father who is dying an excruciating death from lung cancer and wants his sons to help him die. Maybe assisted death was the theme for that particular week's NYT book review section. Glad I've also started to reread The Anthropologist by Nicholson Baker. That has me laughing out loud.
I marked three passages to copy, but when I reread them now, I don't see any reason to copy them. It's not any one passage, it's the cumulative effect of the book that is so devastating. It's devastating in a way that is pervasive. It's about a broken person and her attempts to heal herself by helping people who want to die, die.
November 15, 2022
Evelyn is a 37 year old woman, recently unemployed, married but with no children, who is facing a bit of a personal existential crisis in her life. She knows she and her husband of many years are growing apart, and she knows her parents are getting older. She may end up alone. She stumbles upon the opportunity to train to become somewhat of an "exit companion" in which she would evaluate and assist in deaths of those who are ready to stop suffering and voluntarily move on to the end of their lives.
I admit that I had this sitting on my shelf for a long time and something drew me in to pick it up. It low key captivated me from page one. I was fascinated by Evelyn and her journey. I found so many parallels to my own life and shared thoughts I've had about life and death. This was such a unique subtle look at human behavior, the need to be loved, the need to be connected, to be remembered. I absolutely was enraptured by the way both Daphne and Lawrence looked back at their own lives and shared experiences with Evelyn. Life is such a unique and intimate thing, and what does it mean when yours is fading away? When is life just a solitary journey and who will remember you? Gosh this was so beautiful and introspective. I just adored it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this opportunity. Sorry it took me so long, but it was worth the wait!
I admit that I had this sitting on my shelf for a long time and something drew me in to pick it up. It low key captivated me from page one. I was fascinated by Evelyn and her journey. I found so many parallels to my own life and shared thoughts I've had about life and death. This was such a unique subtle look at human behavior, the need to be loved, the need to be connected, to be remembered. I absolutely was enraptured by the way both Daphne and Lawrence looked back at their own lives and shared experiences with Evelyn. Life is such a unique and intimate thing, and what does it mean when yours is fading away? When is life just a solitary journey and who will remember you? Gosh this was so beautiful and introspective. I just adored it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this opportunity. Sorry it took me so long, but it was worth the wait!
August 9, 2020
Lydia Kiesling’s blurb for this book captures it best for me: “Life Events is a hypnotic novel that beautifully grapples with fundamental questions about how to die and how to live.” The author explores so much about how we relate to others in this novel. How to be a part of a relationship. What forgiveness means. Understanding your place In the world. Every sentence packed such a punch. I didn’t think I’d see myself and my struggles so much in this book, but I did. And I believe how I found myself in these words is going to be different from the next reader, and so on. Waclawiak truly explores what it’s like to attempt to understand yourself and the world.
I would give this book 4.5 stars if goodreads had half stars, mostly because I felt like the last half of the book wasn’t given the space it deserved. I wanted to see as much of the last two clients as we did with Daphne. It felt like the action vs. contemplation was unbalanced, with Evelyn doing a lot more analyzing in the last half than the beginning. It was all great writing and important to her character, but I think it would have made more sense to balance it out more.
All in all, what a wonderful book.
I would give this book 4.5 stars if goodreads had half stars, mostly because I felt like the last half of the book wasn’t given the space it deserved. I wanted to see as much of the last two clients as we did with Daphne. It felt like the action vs. contemplation was unbalanced, with Evelyn doing a lot more analyzing in the last half than the beginning. It was all great writing and important to her character, but I think it would have made more sense to balance it out more.
All in all, what a wonderful book.
November 10, 2020
Evelyn is a 37 year old woman who is at the crossroads of her life. Not knowing if she wants to be with her husband anymore and desiring a direction, she tries to search out a route that would satisfy her need for liberation. A user of alcohol, Xanax and weed pen to help her insomnia and to dull pain, she ends up enrolling in a course that helps people through the dying process, becoming a death doula. The novel then looks at the difficulties and fulfillment she experiences while being by their sides. There are a lot of reflective questions along the way that she has to ask herself and her clients. What brings you joy? At what point would you want to have a final exit? What physical objects do you care about most in the world? As a former hospice worker I was drawn to this novel because it followed a train of thought that was often used with my patients. However, Evelyn was unlike anyone I would have known. She is richly drawn, suffused with much introspection. . In this process however, the reader gets to examine and scrutinize his/her own feelings about facing our own inevitable death. I must say, it lead to a great discussion with my husband.
October 14, 2020
A little bit uncomfortable, but satisfying nonetheless. It's hard to become emotionally attached to the protagonist here, because even though she wants to be seen, Evelyn spends a lot of time actively detaching from everything in her life. As a result, this ends up being quite contemplative and self-reflective, so buckle up & get ready to think about loneliness (both within and after a marriage), grief (of losing loved ones, of the end of your own life), and uncertainty (hey, it's a pandemic & there's a lot of that IRL!).
May 20, 2021
Overall liked the plot. The pacing felt off at the end, left a bit confused if I liked it.
November 6, 2023
loved this book. somewhat reminded me of sorrow & bliss— lost women trapped by convention, trying to figure it out. beautifully written and relatable.
September 25, 2020
A book about depression and death, everywhere. A book that yet manages to be so full of life at times.
January 27, 2021
Evelyn is a 37 year old woman going through a rough patch with her husband and her ailing dad, who is a bit of a drifter. In the way of gaining some stable employment, she takes on a job as a death doula. From there, her fragile existence takes a nosedive, while she rises to life’s unbearable challenges and dilemmas. Breathtakingly sparse and gorgeous, delivered with an emotive punch.
July 23, 2022
"Hold the room," she said. "People push you away as they're dying. Let their feelings have space so you can gauge your approach in how you'll help them through it. Death isn't something that happens to you, it's something you do."
Bethanny kept driving home that we were active participants in how we chose to die, and I couldn't help but think about how we chose to be active participants in the way we were living, too--or not. Sometimes it felt nearly impossible to step out of that inertia once you were in it.
~~Stars light up the night sky above Death Valley--one of the best places in the United States to view the Milky Way or track a meteor shower. In the foreground, notice a rock with a track going out into the distance behind it. This is an example of the moving rocks phenomenon in the valley. Scientists have finally uncovered the mystery, but observing the effects still feels surreal. Our main character, Evelyn, drives to Death Valley in an attempt to unravel her mental state. She is mesmerized by the rocks. They symbolize her life in a way. Apparently inert, but looking around one day to find out she has moved. Then feeling a sense of vertigo--unsure where she is or how she got here. And the most important question of all--where does she go from here?
First *three* sentences: The hills around the freeway were a dusty yellow, showing wear from months of drought. Winter rain hadn't settled in yet, and the last few years had been absent any significant storms. I was not good at having confrontations, so I was fleeing again.
Evelyn is spinning her wheels. Her relationship with her parents has always been dysfunctional--her father, an alcoholic has been obsessed with his death for as long as she can remember, and her mother constantly threatens to leave him. But now they are both approaching death, and she wrestles with her feelings on the matter. Her marriage to her husband is stagnant. She seems incapable of being emotionally available, and is unsure how to be a "wife"....or more accurately, she doesn't know how to be a "we". She lost her job, but is afraid to admit so to her husband. And so in place of going to work, she takes long drives in the desert.
Then she reads an ad about Bethanny and her organization--"a training program that taught people how to help other people die. We would serve as exit guides for the dying. I had no idea such a job existed." The training program is a challenge for Evelyn. Her avoidance of confrontations includes avoiding her own loaded memories with their associated emotions. But this program forces her to face her mortality...and morality. They are separated into twos and ask each other "How do you avoid pain? for 5 minutes straight. Evelyn is learning to help people create a death of their choosing. Will the lessons she learns help her create a *LIFE* of her choosing? So much of what we are stems from our childhoods. But maybe she can turn the page, and become the author of her next life chapter.
My two cents: I started this novel intrigued by the premise. However, much like Evelyn's life, the story arc stalls out. There's a lot going on, but at the same time, little is resolved. And while this is realistic for many people working towards a productive adulthood after dysfunctional childhoods, it's still a frustrating read. I struggled to feel sympathy for Evelyn, but for the majority of the book, I just wanted to shake her. The sub-plot of "conscious death"--which is really just hands off assisted death--is a hot topic involving strong personal beliefs. Waclawiak approaches it in a very cavalier manner. As a nurse, it was troubling to see assisted death portrayed this way--in a silo, almost, with no other options or resources available to their clients. A quote from Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End seems appropriate here, and is lifted from my review of the linked book under further reading.
"Certainly, suffering at the end of life is sometimes unavoidable and unbearable, and helping people end their misery may be necessary. Given the opportunity, I would support laws to provide these kinds of prescriptions to people. About half don't even use their prescription. They are reassured just to know they have this control if they need it. But we damage entire societies if we let providing this capability divert us from improving the lives of the ill. Assisted living is far harder than assisted death, but its possibilities are far greater, as well."
Given 3 stars or a rating of "Good". Recommended to anyone who likes character studies.
Further Reading: A VERY informative article from nih.gov which compares palliative care and hospice. Both offer supportive care so patients with serious illnesses can live...and eventually die...with dignity. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-a...
~~A link to my review on Gawande's excellent book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
~~Before judging Evelyn too harshly, read this article on the lasting effects of a childhood with an alcoholic parent. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/...
~~And finally, Death Valley National Park is vast, rugged, and beautiful. Evelyn found solace there. Here's a link to some of the wonders found in the park. https://www.doi.gov/blog/12-things-yo...
Bethanny kept driving home that we were active participants in how we chose to die, and I couldn't help but think about how we chose to be active participants in the way we were living, too--or not. Sometimes it felt nearly impossible to step out of that inertia once you were in it.
~~Stars light up the night sky above Death Valley--one of the best places in the United States to view the Milky Way or track a meteor shower. In the foreground, notice a rock with a track going out into the distance behind it. This is an example of the moving rocks phenomenon in the valley. Scientists have finally uncovered the mystery, but observing the effects still feels surreal. Our main character, Evelyn, drives to Death Valley in an attempt to unravel her mental state. She is mesmerized by the rocks. They symbolize her life in a way. Apparently inert, but looking around one day to find out she has moved. Then feeling a sense of vertigo--unsure where she is or how she got here. And the most important question of all--where does she go from here?
First *three* sentences: The hills around the freeway were a dusty yellow, showing wear from months of drought. Winter rain hadn't settled in yet, and the last few years had been absent any significant storms. I was not good at having confrontations, so I was fleeing again.
Evelyn is spinning her wheels. Her relationship with her parents has always been dysfunctional--her father, an alcoholic has been obsessed with his death for as long as she can remember, and her mother constantly threatens to leave him. But now they are both approaching death, and she wrestles with her feelings on the matter. Her marriage to her husband is stagnant. She seems incapable of being emotionally available, and is unsure how to be a "wife"....or more accurately, she doesn't know how to be a "we". She lost her job, but is afraid to admit so to her husband. And so in place of going to work, she takes long drives in the desert.
Then she reads an ad about Bethanny and her organization--"a training program that taught people how to help other people die. We would serve as exit guides for the dying. I had no idea such a job existed." The training program is a challenge for Evelyn. Her avoidance of confrontations includes avoiding her own loaded memories with their associated emotions. But this program forces her to face her mortality...and morality. They are separated into twos and ask each other "How do you avoid pain? for 5 minutes straight. Evelyn is learning to help people create a death of their choosing. Will the lessons she learns help her create a *LIFE* of her choosing? So much of what we are stems from our childhoods. But maybe she can turn the page, and become the author of her next life chapter.
My two cents: I started this novel intrigued by the premise. However, much like Evelyn's life, the story arc stalls out. There's a lot going on, but at the same time, little is resolved. And while this is realistic for many people working towards a productive adulthood after dysfunctional childhoods, it's still a frustrating read. I struggled to feel sympathy for Evelyn, but for the majority of the book, I just wanted to shake her. The sub-plot of "conscious death"--which is really just hands off assisted death--is a hot topic involving strong personal beliefs. Waclawiak approaches it in a very cavalier manner. As a nurse, it was troubling to see assisted death portrayed this way--in a silo, almost, with no other options or resources available to their clients. A quote from Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End seems appropriate here, and is lifted from my review of the linked book under further reading.
"Certainly, suffering at the end of life is sometimes unavoidable and unbearable, and helping people end their misery may be necessary. Given the opportunity, I would support laws to provide these kinds of prescriptions to people. About half don't even use their prescription. They are reassured just to know they have this control if they need it. But we damage entire societies if we let providing this capability divert us from improving the lives of the ill. Assisted living is far harder than assisted death, but its possibilities are far greater, as well."
Given 3 stars or a rating of "Good". Recommended to anyone who likes character studies.
Further Reading: A VERY informative article from nih.gov which compares palliative care and hospice. Both offer supportive care so patients with serious illnesses can live...and eventually die...with dignity. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-a...
~~A link to my review on Gawande's excellent book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
~~Before judging Evelyn too harshly, read this article on the lasting effects of a childhood with an alcoholic parent. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/...
~~And finally, Death Valley National Park is vast, rugged, and beautiful. Evelyn found solace there. Here's a link to some of the wonders found in the park. https://www.doi.gov/blog/12-things-yo...
July 22, 2020
Thank you to the author, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Carrying lots of bleakness, despair, listlessness and self-destructive behavior, the heroine is searching for a panacea that will turn her life around. Sadly, this is a chimera, as she will always take her problems with her wherever she goes - and she seems oblivious to the fact that both problem and solution rest within herself. The involvement with a group helping terminally ill people exit their lives sounds almost cultish, or at least skating on very thin ice in terms of legality, but provides a counterpoint to the heroine's inner landscape. I found the heroine deeply unlikeable, and the book - while parts were beautifully written - endlessly tedious.
Carrying lots of bleakness, despair, listlessness and self-destructive behavior, the heroine is searching for a panacea that will turn her life around. Sadly, this is a chimera, as she will always take her problems with her wherever she goes - and she seems oblivious to the fact that both problem and solution rest within herself. The involvement with a group helping terminally ill people exit their lives sounds almost cultish, or at least skating on very thin ice in terms of legality, but provides a counterpoint to the heroine's inner landscape. I found the heroine deeply unlikeable, and the book - while parts were beautifully written - endlessly tedious.
April 22, 2022
too self-absorbed
August 16, 2020
Evelyn, the main character of this novel, is nothing if not self-absorbed, which is not so surprising given the Instagram era we are forced to live in. Evelyn is 37 years old as the story unfolds, and she’s grappling with that most mundane of mid-life crises: a breakup with her husband Bobby whom she feels is not a good match for her soul.
The truth is that Bobby is not all that unhappy with Evelyn’s decision to break up because he can’t seem to connect to her either and in short order, he is dating someone else.
Evelyn’s transition is nowhere near that smooth. Even though she is a fierce navel gazer, she just cannot seem to connect to herself. Where to turn? Evelyn cashes in her 401K money so she can spend some time finding herself, and this is where the book takes off.
Evelyn joins a group of like-minded souls who are training to be “exit guides,” aides who assist those with terminal diseases who want to meet their maker on their own terms. The training feels very much like an Alcohol Anonymous meeting, at least as Waclawiak describes that first meeting:
“We were of varying ages in this room, but it felt like we had all somehow misjudged the big life events. We were focused on the end because we had already fucked up the middle part. We were flailing. Or maybe just I was flailing. People in the world were filling their social media feeds with momentous life change like weddings and babies and new, serous jobs, and though some people in this room might have been doing just that, too, I was not. I had hit a point of stagnation, and I felt like I was dying.”
When she gets home (she’s still with Bobby at this point), her soon-to-be-ex compares what she’s doing to her latest fad.
“I feel like you start something new every week. A beading workshop. Spin class.”
“That’s vaguely insulting,” she says.
And she right of course which is one of the myriad reasons the split soon takes place.
Whatever Bobby thinks of the group, Evelyn’s trip down this odd career path (which feels like it might actually exist or will in the near future) elevates the book above other novels of this sort. Soon Evelyn is interacting with head trainer Bethanny and other rising death doulas.
It’s no surprise that she’s attracted to a fellow exit guide trainee, but she remains a bit frightened of him as well since he’s her first potential lover since her husband. Truth is, Evelyn seems a bit frightened of everyone be they fellow guides or the “clients” who are dying.
A woman named Daphne is Evelyn’s first client and she asks Evelyn, on the sly, to take her to a former dive bar where she brags about all the fun she used to have in the bar’s rest room. It’s a touching reference because it reminds Evelyn and us that even the dying were once living it up,. But the present is, as they say, ever present. As Daphne and Evelyn prepare to leave, Evelyn collapses from her illness, and both women are cruelly reminded why they even know each other.
And then there are the male clients Evelyn must treat as well, and there is a much different dynamic present, the one you might expect when men and women find themselves alone in a highly charged atmosphere. A former pornographer puts Evelyn’s hand on his genitals, and she tells him it’s okay. There is another randy guy who is dying. Evelyn finds him so attractive and vibrant that she has sex with him. Evelyn can see she’s headed for a world with no boundaries and abruptly quits the exit guide program.
She retreats to the desert to ruminate on her life, to try to understand her dying alcoholic father and her mother and the choices all of them made. She goes deeper and deeper into the desert, visiting ghost towns in search of herself until she winds up in Death Valley.
She thinks about what a therapist once told her about there being only two types of “emotional disasters” that get imprinted on children. One tells a child “you are bad” while the other leaves the child with a feeling of “you are no one.”
Evelyn feels she is no one. In the hands of a less polished writer, this novel might be one long cliché, but Karolina Waclawiak is no mere writer. She is a master of painting emotions with many different colors. Consider Evelyn’s thoughts in the desert as she hears a far-off plane overhead:
“I once again had the feeling of I am no one well up inside of me. As I looked up at the jet hanging low overhead, I wanted to plane to see me. So I took a few steps and reclined on the mud that had cracked into near-perfect squares and stared up at the plane and the sky. ‘Can you see me?’ I wanted to call out. But I didn’t. Because I wanted to be seen, and not seen at all.”
The truth is that Bobby is not all that unhappy with Evelyn’s decision to break up because he can’t seem to connect to her either and in short order, he is dating someone else.
Evelyn’s transition is nowhere near that smooth. Even though she is a fierce navel gazer, she just cannot seem to connect to herself. Where to turn? Evelyn cashes in her 401K money so she can spend some time finding herself, and this is where the book takes off.
Evelyn joins a group of like-minded souls who are training to be “exit guides,” aides who assist those with terminal diseases who want to meet their maker on their own terms. The training feels very much like an Alcohol Anonymous meeting, at least as Waclawiak describes that first meeting:
“We were of varying ages in this room, but it felt like we had all somehow misjudged the big life events. We were focused on the end because we had already fucked up the middle part. We were flailing. Or maybe just I was flailing. People in the world were filling their social media feeds with momentous life change like weddings and babies and new, serous jobs, and though some people in this room might have been doing just that, too, I was not. I had hit a point of stagnation, and I felt like I was dying.”
When she gets home (she’s still with Bobby at this point), her soon-to-be-ex compares what she’s doing to her latest fad.
“I feel like you start something new every week. A beading workshop. Spin class.”
“That’s vaguely insulting,” she says.
And she right of course which is one of the myriad reasons the split soon takes place.
Whatever Bobby thinks of the group, Evelyn’s trip down this odd career path (which feels like it might actually exist or will in the near future) elevates the book above other novels of this sort. Soon Evelyn is interacting with head trainer Bethanny and other rising death doulas.
It’s no surprise that she’s attracted to a fellow exit guide trainee, but she remains a bit frightened of him as well since he’s her first potential lover since her husband. Truth is, Evelyn seems a bit frightened of everyone be they fellow guides or the “clients” who are dying.
A woman named Daphne is Evelyn’s first client and she asks Evelyn, on the sly, to take her to a former dive bar where she brags about all the fun she used to have in the bar’s rest room. It’s a touching reference because it reminds Evelyn and us that even the dying were once living it up,. But the present is, as they say, ever present. As Daphne and Evelyn prepare to leave, Evelyn collapses from her illness, and both women are cruelly reminded why they even know each other.
And then there are the male clients Evelyn must treat as well, and there is a much different dynamic present, the one you might expect when men and women find themselves alone in a highly charged atmosphere. A former pornographer puts Evelyn’s hand on his genitals, and she tells him it’s okay. There is another randy guy who is dying. Evelyn finds him so attractive and vibrant that she has sex with him. Evelyn can see she’s headed for a world with no boundaries and abruptly quits the exit guide program.
She retreats to the desert to ruminate on her life, to try to understand her dying alcoholic father and her mother and the choices all of them made. She goes deeper and deeper into the desert, visiting ghost towns in search of herself until she winds up in Death Valley.
She thinks about what a therapist once told her about there being only two types of “emotional disasters” that get imprinted on children. One tells a child “you are bad” while the other leaves the child with a feeling of “you are no one.”
Evelyn feels she is no one. In the hands of a less polished writer, this novel might be one long cliché, but Karolina Waclawiak is no mere writer. She is a master of painting emotions with many different colors. Consider Evelyn’s thoughts in the desert as she hears a far-off plane overhead:
“I once again had the feeling of I am no one well up inside of me. As I looked up at the jet hanging low overhead, I wanted to plane to see me. So I took a few steps and reclined on the mud that had cracked into near-perfect squares and stared up at the plane and the sky. ‘Can you see me?’ I wanted to call out. But I didn’t. Because I wanted to be seen, and not seen at all.”
January 19, 2021
I wanted to learn about dying from this book. I did. I also learned about living. For example, the main character, Evelyn, has a trainer to teach her how to help others die, to be what is called an Exit Guide. The trainer, Bethany, says “we are active participants in how we chose to die…” and Evelyn goes on to say ““…and I couldn’t help but think about how we chose to be active participants in the way we were living, too—or not” (p. 51).
At times this book is full of clarity with stories like this: “A rabbi once told me the we all live with a certain cognitive dissonance as we navigate the challenges of this world. We struggle with a duality that’s rooted. In the foundation of our existence. WE are drawn between the realness of the body—the mundane, if you want to call it that—and the soul, which is the divine. The challenge and the hope in our lives is to unite the two in order to bring about transcendence. In. death, we are finally freed from the limitations of the mundane” (p. 165)
The main character’s life is not really a series of events but a gut-wrenching inertia from which she seems unable to emerge. There is so much hopelessness, that is hard to interpret the ending, which is uncertain, as anything but sad. To be an Exit Guide, Evelyn must do all the things she asks of those she helps die. One of those things is to write a letter of forgiveness to herself. The letter in full is almost unbearable to read. For example, “I forgive you for thinking vulnerability was a weakness, because for so long you had to hide your vulnerabilities in order to survive”. Would every single person have a letter or forgiveness that is as poignant? She says of her mental disasters as a child: “They were broken down into the childhood development of two feelings: I am bad or I am no one. The first is the state of depression and ego paralysis. The second is the state of depersonalization and ego loss. Both evoke primal fear…The result could be needing to be seen, or wanting to be heard. No amount of being seen can satiate you when your prevailing sense of self is I am no one.”
This book is about living like you’re going to die and if you can stand the sadness and the pain that is sure to arise, you may recognize yourself in the universality of spirit that pervades the pages.
At times this book is full of clarity with stories like this: “A rabbi once told me the we all live with a certain cognitive dissonance as we navigate the challenges of this world. We struggle with a duality that’s rooted. In the foundation of our existence. WE are drawn between the realness of the body—the mundane, if you want to call it that—and the soul, which is the divine. The challenge and the hope in our lives is to unite the two in order to bring about transcendence. In. death, we are finally freed from the limitations of the mundane” (p. 165)
The main character’s life is not really a series of events but a gut-wrenching inertia from which she seems unable to emerge. There is so much hopelessness, that is hard to interpret the ending, which is uncertain, as anything but sad. To be an Exit Guide, Evelyn must do all the things she asks of those she helps die. One of those things is to write a letter of forgiveness to herself. The letter in full is almost unbearable to read. For example, “I forgive you for thinking vulnerability was a weakness, because for so long you had to hide your vulnerabilities in order to survive”. Would every single person have a letter or forgiveness that is as poignant? She says of her mental disasters as a child: “They were broken down into the childhood development of two feelings: I am bad or I am no one. The first is the state of depression and ego paralysis. The second is the state of depersonalization and ego loss. Both evoke primal fear…The result could be needing to be seen, or wanting to be heard. No amount of being seen can satiate you when your prevailing sense of self is I am no one.”
This book is about living like you’re going to die and if you can stand the sadness and the pain that is sure to arise, you may recognize yourself in the universality of spirit that pervades the pages.
September 17, 2020
This was a surprisingly quick read for me. I was sucked in right away because the premise was so intriguing. I went in thinking that this was going to be primarily about people who want to die and the people who want to help them die, but it was more about Evelyn and her troubled marriage and even more troubling existential crisis.
Evelyn is a complex individual who is lost and unsure whether she even wants to live. She is a shell of a human being emotionally, incapable of giving herself fully to her husband. Her father is dying, and we follow her journey to accepting that. Through her training to become a “death deliverer” (I’m not sure what the correct terminology is, but someone who helps people who want to die, die), she learns to ask tough questions about the meaning of life and what it means to die with dignity.
Life Events was beautifully written, and I enjoyed the setting (desert California). To me there’s always been something haunting and lonely about a desert, maybe because of the brutal and bare-bones conditions out there that make it tough for living things to survive. But there is also beauty in that. Although it seems like Life Events would be a morbid book about euthanasia and death, I don’t feel like it was written that way. There was nothing overly gruesome or over-described. It was more of an examination of the philosophy of life and death. The one thing I will say is that the plot wanders—there isn’t exactly a rhyme or reason to what takes place, but I found it realistic because Evelyn was such a lost person who floated from one thing to another like a ghost. Some readers may not enjoy this type of thing and might prefer a more anchored plot.
Evelyn is a complex individual who is lost and unsure whether she even wants to live. She is a shell of a human being emotionally, incapable of giving herself fully to her husband. Her father is dying, and we follow her journey to accepting that. Through her training to become a “death deliverer” (I’m not sure what the correct terminology is, but someone who helps people who want to die, die), she learns to ask tough questions about the meaning of life and what it means to die with dignity.
Life Events was beautifully written, and I enjoyed the setting (desert California). To me there’s always been something haunting and lonely about a desert, maybe because of the brutal and bare-bones conditions out there that make it tough for living things to survive. But there is also beauty in that. Although it seems like Life Events would be a morbid book about euthanasia and death, I don’t feel like it was written that way. There was nothing overly gruesome or over-described. It was more of an examination of the philosophy of life and death. The one thing I will say is that the plot wanders—there isn’t exactly a rhyme or reason to what takes place, but I found it realistic because Evelyn was such a lost person who floated from one thing to another like a ghost. Some readers may not enjoy this type of thing and might prefer a more anchored plot.
October 3, 2021
As the saying goes, there are only two things guaranteed in life, death and taxes. And since taxes are not brought up in Karolina Waclawiak's Life Events, the guarantee here is death. But it's not the morbid, unhealthy fascination kind, but a contemplative examination of what it means to confront death on one's own terms. Evelyn is 37 and is hiding her recent unemployment from her husband Bobby. After having to conscientiously and humanely put down an injured hummingbird, through a lot of late night Googling, Evelyn comes across a program that trains people to help guide people at the end of their lives to peacefully pass on. They are sometimes known as death doulas. Before she can be a guide, Evelyn must consider what she wants her conscientious death to look like. On a scale from 0 to 100, what level of pain, mobility, consciousness, does she want to live with. Many people choose below 50%. Evelyn's ideal is 70%. This forces her to engage with her own past, her aging parents, and her dying marriage. What is Evelyn able to live with? As Evelyn meets her clients, three very distinct personalities, and that in which she's unable to fully disengage from (and not make their deaths about her), Waclawiak explores what it means to live and what it means to die. Being all the more better for it, Waclawiak doesn't make it about grand gestures and sudden epiphanies. In fact, Evelyn's character arc is minimal. But that's also how life works, in bits and pieces, that all the little events build upon each other, hopefully cohering into something, that when the end comes, it comes with a sense of peace.
September 12, 2021
Evelyn feels lost in her failing marriage and takes on a new endeavor of guiding people through and to their decision to die by suicide.
I love introspective stories of longing and contemplating and searching for meaning and connection. I love protagonists that feel authentic and deeply rooted in their character. Evelyn struggles with commitment and living her life as a couple, seeking solace on long drives to the desert and hiding out in the pain of others. She struggles to understand herself and live authentically and honestly, and thus this is a book a journey of her self-discovery, acceptance, and maybe even forgiveness.
I deeply love living and thus fear death, so the pervasive theme of death in the book was a struggle for me. However it was really interesting to follow along with the process of preparing mentally and physically to die, all the considerations and the guidance Evelyn is trained to provide. It's insightful and brutal. It amazes me when authors can so perfectly capture small moments of wonder and curiosity and make them seem momentous and defining.
Quote: And with no phone service of any kind, nothing could hurt me, either. I didn’t have to anticipate a phone call beckoning me to a hospital room, because one wouldn’t come if I stayed up there. And so I began seeking out places where I was unreachable.
Quote: It wasn’t that I had attachment issues to anything; it was more like I didn’t feel attached to anything at all. I looked at all the things that it wouldn’t hurt me to leave and understood that being too detached might actually be my problem.
I love introspective stories of longing and contemplating and searching for meaning and connection. I love protagonists that feel authentic and deeply rooted in their character. Evelyn struggles with commitment and living her life as a couple, seeking solace on long drives to the desert and hiding out in the pain of others. She struggles to understand herself and live authentically and honestly, and thus this is a book a journey of her self-discovery, acceptance, and maybe even forgiveness.
I deeply love living and thus fear death, so the pervasive theme of death in the book was a struggle for me. However it was really interesting to follow along with the process of preparing mentally and physically to die, all the considerations and the guidance Evelyn is trained to provide. It's insightful and brutal. It amazes me when authors can so perfectly capture small moments of wonder and curiosity and make them seem momentous and defining.
Quote: And with no phone service of any kind, nothing could hurt me, either. I didn’t have to anticipate a phone call beckoning me to a hospital room, because one wouldn’t come if I stayed up there. And so I began seeking out places where I was unreachable.
Quote: It wasn’t that I had attachment issues to anything; it was more like I didn’t feel attached to anything at all. I looked at all the things that it wouldn’t hurt me to leave and understood that being too detached might actually be my problem.
March 3, 2024
Life Events is just as sombre as its premise sounds (a woman reclaims her own life by helping terminally ill people end their own). But it's nowhere near as neat.
Like the Xanax and wine habitually consumed by its narrator, it's a messy cocktail of downers. A 30-something woman attempts to cope with marital breakdown, attachment issues, and the ghost of her alcoholic father by becoming an exit guide for those seeking assisted-dying. And it's hard to work out exactly what we're supposed to take from it beyond mildly pleasurable wallowing.
It's basically a one-character novel, strictly limited to the perspective of a depressed person struggling to articulate their own malaise. Other characters are lightly sketched on the periphery, but never fleshed out in any detail despite being major contributors to the narrator's inner turmoil. It's a recipe for supreme navel-gazing, peppered with micro-breakthroughs and semi-realisations that never quite pay off the unrelenting seriousness of the premise. The idea of someone using strangers' deaths to rekindle their flatlining emotional state is also a bit hard to swallow, if you think about it.
Good bit of misery-porn, but nowhere near as revelatory as it promises.
Like the Xanax and wine habitually consumed by its narrator, it's a messy cocktail of downers. A 30-something woman attempts to cope with marital breakdown, attachment issues, and the ghost of her alcoholic father by becoming an exit guide for those seeking assisted-dying. And it's hard to work out exactly what we're supposed to take from it beyond mildly pleasurable wallowing.
It's basically a one-character novel, strictly limited to the perspective of a depressed person struggling to articulate their own malaise. Other characters are lightly sketched on the periphery, but never fleshed out in any detail despite being major contributors to the narrator's inner turmoil. It's a recipe for supreme navel-gazing, peppered with micro-breakthroughs and semi-realisations that never quite pay off the unrelenting seriousness of the premise. The idea of someone using strangers' deaths to rekindle their flatlining emotional state is also a bit hard to swallow, if you think about it.
Good bit of misery-porn, but nowhere near as revelatory as it promises.
September 20, 2025
I loved the premise of Life Events and really enjoyed the first act in particular, only to feel let down by how it all unraveled. Evelyn is a paradoxically compelling character whose passivity and aimlessness is vivid and realistic if a bit frustrating to follow. As a palliative care chaplain, I was so curious to read about her transformation into an "exit guide" (think death doula with a clunkier onboarding process). I thought it was an odd but funny choice to characterize the program she joins as a bit culty, though that ultimately is underdeveloped as the story takes a more vested interest in Evelyn's love life. This is where it lost me, in part because it felt so unnecessary to diverge into romantic territories when her burgeoning work with dying people already felt more than rich enough to serve the story. Then there's the (spoiler incoming) fact that she ultimately begins an affair with one of her clients and this essentially inspires him to recommit to living and I was totally turned off. That storyline felt so unethical, contrived, and cliched that it really tanked the book overall for me. Despite those misgivings, I do think Waclawiak is a talented writer and appreciated the introspective prose here.
November 23, 2020
Exactly my cup of tea but won't be for everyone. Evelyn is a woman in her late 30s, living in Los Angeles, unhappy in her marriage, unhappy in many ways, and trying to come to terms with her life and with death, loss, and grief. She trains to be an "exit guide" -- someone who helps terminally ill people with emotionally and practically preparing for assisted suicide -- which includes among other exercise five minutes spent answering the question "How do you avoid pain?" with a trainee partner; some of her responses: Xanax, a weed pen, wine (a bottle each night, as we later learn), sex, making jokes, avoiding people and relationships, etc. Each client helps her consider her self-destructiveness and her strategies for suppressing pain in a new light. I appreciated her internal monologues, the sepia-toned memories of her family vacations, her fraught (anxious, angry, detached, impulsive) reactions to people and situations, and her yen for escape, including many long drives around California and Arizona backroads, through Mojave, Death Valley, various deserts, where she occasionally spends a night or two alone in a motel. It's a novel I'll re-read.
September 13, 2020
One of the most important themes in literature is our impending deaths, and in Life Events, Karolina Waclawiak wraps her arms around mortality with a big bear hug. And she does it with a main character who is emotionally detached, lost, and afraid to love. This novel is alternately sad, funny, and thought provoking. It’s about a woman having an existential crisis during her divorce who becomes an exit guide, helping people prepare to die. We follow the main character through her exit guide training and her visits with those who are seeking closure. Her relationships with those who are near death give her the most comfort, and leads her to reflect on her alcoholic father who has confided to her that he wants to die before her mother does.
This novel is not for everyone. Many will find it morbid, but if you read existential works, give this a try. As EM Forster once wrote, “Death destroys a man. The idea of death saves him.”
This novel is not for everyone. Many will find it morbid, but if you read existential works, give this a try. As EM Forster once wrote, “Death destroys a man. The idea of death saves him.”
November 3, 2022
I was very excited to hear about this book and really looking forward to reading it. The idea of death doulas and assisted, conscious dying is fascinating, and, sure enough, there were some very interesting ideas about life and death. Often, however, the plot got in the way and the ideas were sometimes a bit stodgily executed.
And when I say, 'plot', I'm speaking loosely because there isn't much of one. We are following the internal journey of Evelyn, a 37-year-old seeker who is dissatisfied with everything in her life but can't seem to do much about it. She is intrigued by Bethanny, leader of a death doula consortium that provides assisted suicide services. She undergoes training and meets a few people with legitimate reasons to die. Meanwhile, she walks away from her marriage without even attempting to communicate with her husband. Evelyn seems determined to remain detached from life and death. Is she right?
And when I say, 'plot', I'm speaking loosely because there isn't much of one. We are following the internal journey of Evelyn, a 37-year-old seeker who is dissatisfied with everything in her life but can't seem to do much about it. She is intrigued by Bethanny, leader of a death doula consortium that provides assisted suicide services. She undergoes training and meets a few people with legitimate reasons to die. Meanwhile, she walks away from her marriage without even attempting to communicate with her husband. Evelyn seems determined to remain detached from life and death. Is she right?
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