REVIEW: Executrix by Brittany Perham Unveils Dark Secrets That Will Keep You Guessing Until the Last Page
I appreciate the up-frontness. Saying she doesn’t know is a welcome shift from the expectation, pressure, cliche, that memoir authors need to be able to fix their problem, finish their grieving by the last page. It takes a lot of pressure off as long as the writing is compelling, which it is here.
I wanted to review this book because of my own Dead Dad story. The similarities between our Dead Dad stories are so uncanny that it made me consider abandoning this review.
Perham drops us right into a Boston ICU where her father, Robert, is dying or dead or both. You see, he’s brain dead. But his body, overwhelmed by alcoholic cirrhosis, is technically alive courtesy of a ventilator and other life-extending equipment. Perham does a fantastic job of letting us in on all the thoughts racing through her mind. Some of the lines burst out in short sentences or small paragraphs. Words, phrases repeat. This structure mirrors what it’s like to have many conflicting emotions about the death of a chaotic father. Making an already upsetting situation more complicated is that Perham has been estranged from Robert for the ten years before her brother summoned her back to Boston from San Francisco. The siblings have decided to take him off those machines, let him fully die.
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