Things I've Learned from Dying

An attorney and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award reflects on his work on death row as his own life forces him to confront mortality.

“David R. Dow’s stories are always compelling. His observations are unflinching and true. Death is a part of daily routine, and in this remarkable book he takes us to the grave and back.” —John Grisham

In his critically acclaimed and artful memoir The Autobiography of an Execution, David Dow captivated readers with a searing and frank exploration of his work defending inmates on death row. But when Dow’s father-in-law receives his own death sentence in the form of terminal cancer, and his gentle dog Winona suffers acute liver failure, the author is forced to reconcile with death in a far more personal way, both as a son and as a father.

Told through the disparate lenses of the legal battles he’s spent a career fighting, and the intimate confrontations with death each family faces at home, Things I've Learned From Dying offers a poignant and lyrical account of how illness and loss can ravage a family. Full of grace and intelligence, Dow offers readers hope without cliche and reaffirms our basic human needs for acceptance and love by giving voice to the anguish we all face—as parents, as children, as partners, as friends—when our loved ones die tragically, and far too soon.

“Chilling . . . authentic and heartfelt. . . . He will transfix you.” —Los Angeles Times

“David Dow is a lawyer who writes like an angel.” —Steve Weinberg, Dallas Morning News

“He is a gifted storyteller. And regardless of your opinion on the death penalty, he sounds like good company.” -St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“In terse, spare prose, David Dow mines the shadows between dying and death, work and family, law and justice, love and pain. A stunning meditation on all the ways in which irreversible endings can make us whole.” -Dahlia Lithwick, Supreme Court correspondent, Slate.com