This is a beautifully and fluently written account of writer and educator Joseph Monninger’s first seven months as a Stage IV lung cancer patient. He’d only just ended his teaching career at a college in New Hampshire and was away at his cabin in Maine, a spectacular setting in which he’d hoped to enjoy his retirement with his partner, when the phone call came about a very large tumour in his left lung. (He’d been experiencing considerable breathlessness and a CT scan had recently been performed.) Immediate action was necessary, and he was quickly linked up with a pulmonologist and an oncologist. His was a dire diagnosis, but a blood test revealed that Monninger had a rare mutation, usually found in Asian men (not those of Irish-American ancestry). Patients with this mutation often responded to a drug that offered the promise of extended life. The medication had a list of side effects a yard long, but Monninger was spared the worst of these and afforded extra time.

In the first part of the memoir, the author focuses on his shock, as well as on his meetings with medical specialists. Early on he underwent a procedure to drain his pleural effusion, a buildup of fluid between the layers of tissue that line the lungs and chest cavity. The pulmonologist initially drew two litres of fluid from the chest. After a catheter was surgically placed, Monninger, his partner, Susan, and his son would subsequently be responsible for draining the fluid at home. This was done on alternate days.

Monninger had been a fit, outdoorsy guy. Now, sweeping the porch or walking a short distance winded him. He was also susceptible to infection. All of this in the time of Covid. Adjustments had to be made, but as he continued to live, exceeding his own expectations, Monninger recognized that he had perhaps resigned himself too readily to his condition; he began to make plans for small projects and a trip to Nebraska to watch the magnificent spring migration of the sandhill cranes along the Platte River—a transcendent experience for him and Susan that confirmed the wonder and beauty of life that humans are but a small part of.

While Monninger’s memoir touches on some practicalities a person with a terminal illness must deal with—health insurance and the settling of one’s will, for example—it mostly concerns matters of meaning. The author’s love of the natural world, literature, and fly fishing figure prominently.

The book’s apt title comes from a line in Thornton Wilder’s Play, Our Town, a play famous for its consideration of what makes life valuable.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC. ( )