Death Prefers the Minor Keys

By: Sean Thomas Dougherty

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Synopsis: In his twentieth book, most of which was first composed on the backs of medical forms while on break as a third-shift medical technician, Sean Thomas Dougherty brings us a memoir-like prose sequence reflecting on disability, chronic illness, addiction, survival, love, and parenthood. In Death Prefers the Minor Keys, Dougherty offers the reader collaged prose poems, stories and essays full of dreams, metaphors, aphorisms, parables and narratives of his work as a caregiver. Moving portraits of Dougherty’s residents, a series of letters to Death, invocations of Jewish ancestry through the photography of Roman Vishniac, imaginary treatments for brain injuries, and half translated short stories of lives both real and imagined populate this collection. Through these, Dougherty engages issues of labor, the ontology of disability, and the mysticism of life. Death Prefers the Minor Keys is most of all a kind of love letter to Dougherty’s wife, and her courage and complicity in the face of long-term illness and addiction. Ultimately, we see how the antidote to despair can reside in daily acts of caring for other human beings.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9781960145079
Publisher:: BOA Editions Ltd.
Date of Addition:: 09/26/23
Copyrighted By:: Sean Thomas Dougherty
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Poetry, Disability-Related, Biographies and Memoirs, Literature and Fiction, Parenting and Family
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.