When Breath Becomes Air, like Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (which is probably the best non-fiction book that I have ever read), is about our own mortality and reflects on impending death. But it is also an autobiographical memoir of sorts, published posthumously after Kalanithi’s death from lung cancer. And while it does not have the prescriptive elements that Gawande’s book has to deal with ageing and death, it is a wonderfully crafted book on Kalanithi’s life as a medical practitioner and what his rapidly deteriorating illness meant for his family and for him.
Kalanithi was an extremely accomplished man with multiple degrees in English literature, biology and in philosophy in science and medicine, from Stanford, University of Cambridge and Yale School of Medicine and was a neurosurgeon and writer (and it was unfortunate that his life was cut short at the age of just 37). And it’s his love for English literature that shines through the book. He covers his early life in the deserts of Arizona and his subsequent career path in medicine in the first half of the book and muses on his terminal illness in the second part. The early days of his career take up a disproportionate part of the book but that’s understandable as his rapidly declining health towards the end left his manuscript incomplete. And the book is quite short at about 150 pages anyway. The only complaint, if any, is that the publishers should have split the book into chapters which would have made it easier to read, rather than lump it into two large halves.
His writing is wonderful and the crafting of sentences exquisite — “when there’s no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool” for example. When Breath Becomes Air is bookended with beautifully written foreword by Abraham Verghese, an author and physician, and epilogue by Lucy Kalanithi, Paul’s wife, where she describes his last days and the ups and downs of their relationship and will leave readers moist-eyed. The best few lines in the book, in my view, were clearly the last words that he leaves for his baby daughter — what a beautiful legacy for her to have!
While the Kalanithi’s story was tragic, there’s a heart-warming postscript fortunately — Lucy seems to have found love again. In a happy twist of fate, John Duberstein reached out to her after his dying wife, Nina Riggs, connected him to Lucy — Nina died of breast cancer and penned her memoirs too during her final days. And after a period of being “pen friends”, Lucy and John met and are now together. They surely deserve some happiness now!
Pros: Moving, well-written, reflections on mortality
Cons: Despite the short length overall, the first quarter drags
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