A Good Death

On Christmas Eve, a family has gathered around the table for the obligatory dinner. The father, once an imposing figure who terrorized his children, has suddenly fallen prey to Parkinson’s. Yesterday’s tyrant is now trapped inside a disintegrating body. Andre, the eldest child, is nearing 60. He has never loved the father who lied too much, abused too much, manipulated too much. But still, this holiday week, Andre cannot help but be moved. How should he behave toward a parent to whom all pleasures are forbidden? Should he struggle to prolong the old man’s life, or help him end it? Around the dinner table, opinions are divided. At once intimate and universal, A Good Death is a deeply moving voyage into the essence of humanity. In it, Gil Courtemanche once again asks readers to confront the question that lay at the heart of his first novel: Why live? Why die?