The Last Goodnights

I just finished reading The Last Goodnights by John West. This is a true story about John's assistance in his parents suicide. In the forward Mr West explains:

I don't know what my booze bill was for that time, but I'm sure it was big. I had a good reason, though: I had to kill my parents. They asked me to. Actually, they asked me to help them with their suicides, and I did. And if that doesn't justify throwing back an extra glass or three of Jameson's on the rocks, then I don't know what does.

Usually I read to escape the problems of life for a while and the subject of this book seemed to guarantee a box of Kleenex in my future. With a forward like this, though, I thought I would be able to associate with his sense of black humor and wouldn't get too overwhelmed with the emotions I would surely find in the book.

John's father was Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West, a well know psychiatrist who examined Jack Ruby after he shot Lee Harvey Oswald and was chief psychiatrist for Patty Hearst's defense. Jolly approached John with his desire to end his life when his cancer started to eat him alive. Even though their relationship was strained, John felt it was his duty to put all that aside and heed his father's wishes. John's mother, K, had midstage Alzheimer's disease, plus osteoporosis and emphysema. She too expressed her wishes to John that she wanted to make the decision about the end of her life.

The back of the book reads: Intimately told, The Last Goodnights points out the unnecessary pain and suffering that are often forced upon dying people and their families, and honors the choice to live or die with purpose and dignity. In the end, this story is not just about death -- it is also about love, courage, family and autonomy. It fell short. I was not drawn into this book at all. It mostly seemed to be a book about John patting himself on the back for doing "the right thing". His father did seem to be bad off, and by page 64, John had already "honored his father's wishes", and forced enough pills down his throat to kill him. I'm not kidding, the night after his father returns home from double hip replacement, John is twisting his leg to inflict pain so his father will wake up long enough to take more pills to kill him. The bulk of the book is about his mother who really does not seem that bad. He gives us scenes of her debilitating disease, but honestly I feel I forget more than his mother did. And it seemed to go on and on, for 167 pages I saw a lot of "poor me" on both John's part and his mother's but no concrete evidence that it was truly that awful. I came away with more of a feeling that his mother had depression than anything else, and that John was anxious to help his mother die even getting upset when they had to move the date back. There is an interview on ABC that has a lenghty excerpt.

Needless to say, I didn't need the Kleenex.

I give this 1 out of 5 stars.