Critical Compendium » Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir, by David Rieff
Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir, by David Rieff

‘Swimming in a Sea of Death’ is Rieff’s brief record of how high priests of the body and blood sort — whether oncologists or monsignors — must so often disappoint. And how they disappointed his mother. In the end, neither science nor medicine, reason nor raw intellect, “avidity” for life nor her lifelong sense that hers was a special case — nothing could undo her death. Susan Sontag “died as she had lived: unreconciled to mortality.” And there is the sadness at the heart of Rieff’s testimony: that mothers die, as fathers do, regardless of what they or their children believe or disbelieve. It is our humanity that makes us mortal, not our creeds or their antitheses.’ Read the review at the Los Angeles Times.

Filed under: Memoir, Nonfiction | Posted 01.09.08 | Comments:


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An interview with Steve LeVine, author of The Oil and the Glory

"Big Oil is dying . . . The jury is out on whether the average consumer will be affected. The oil companies say with some justification that the state-owned companies don’t produce oil and natural gas as well as they – Big Oil – can. They say that means less and less supply – or at least not as much supply as might be expected – from these countries in the coming years. That’s important, especially since tight global supplies are one reason for $95-a-barrel oil right now." [ Read the rest of the interview ]



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