Description
The poignant, โpowerfulโ ( The Boston Globe ) look at how to appreciate life from an extraordinary professor who teaches about death: โPoetic passages and assorted revelations youโll likely not forgetโ ( Chicago Tribune ).Why does a college course on death have a three-year waiting list? When nurse Norma Bowe decided to teach a course on death at a college in New Jersey, she never expected it to be popular. But year after year students crowd into her classroom, and the reason is clear: Normaโs โdeath classโ is really about how to make the most of what poet Mary Oliver famously called our โone wild and precious life.โ
Under the guise of discussions about last wills and last breaths and visits to cemeteries and crematoriums, Norma teaches her students to find grace in one another. In The Death Class , award-winning journalist Erika Hayasaki followed Norma for more than four years, showing how she steers four extraordinary students from their tormented families and neighborhoods toward happiness: she rescues one young woman from her suicidal mother, helps a young man manage his schizophrenic brother, and inspires another to leave his gang life behind. Through this unorthodox class on death, Norma helps kids who are barely hanging on to understand not only the value of their own lives, but also the secret of fulfillment: to throw yourself into helping others.
Hayasakiโs expert reporting and literary prose bring Normaโs wisdom out of the classroom, transforming it into an inspiring lesson for all. In the end, Normaโs very own lifeโand how she lives itโis the lecture that sticks. โReaders will come away struck by Boweโs compassionโand by the unexpectedly life-affirming messages of courage that spring from her studentsโ harrowing experiencesโ ( Entertainment Weekly ). ISBN:9781451642940
