Radical Acts of Love

Twenty Conversations to Inspire Hope at the End of Life

By: Janie Brown

Narrated by: Janie Brown

Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

"With Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown demonstrates the power of a book to transform, in fact to turn things upside down. She turns death into life, despair into hope, sorrow into joy, and pain into love with these twenty astonishing encounters with the dying. We all know somewhere in the back of our minds that a deeper understanding and acceptance of death is supposed to release us into an even fiercer embrace of life - this wonderful book made me, for the first time, truly feel and believe it." (Stephen Fry)

In this profound and moving book, oncology nurse Janie Brown recounts 20 conversations she has had with the dying, including people close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective on, and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities. Offering extremely sensitive and wise insight into our final moments, Brown shows practical ways to facilitate the shift from feeling helpless about death to feeling hopeful; from fear to acceptance; from feeling disconnected and alone, to becoming part of the wider, collective story of our mortality.

As Janie Brown writes, "Most people now under sixty have never seen a person die, and so have become deeply fearful about death, their own and the deaths of their beloved others. They have had no role models to show them how to care for a dying person, and therefore no confidence in being able to do so. My hope is that the baby boomer cohort who pushed for the return of the midwives to de-medicalize birth will also be instrumental in reclaiming the death process. This book is my contribution to the re-empowerment of all of us to take charge of our lives and our deaths, remembering that we know how to die, just as we knew how to come into this world. We also know how to heal, and to settle our lives as best we can, before we die. In my view, this is the greatest gift we could give our loved ones: to be prepared and open and accepting when the time comes for us to leave this world."

©2020 Janie Brown (P)2020 Doubleday Canada

Critic reviews

"Janie Brown's extraordinary empathy and intuition coupled with her decades of clinical experience set her book apart from others on the subject of how to help the dying and their loved ones. She is the guide we all hope will be there at the end. Radical Acts of Love does holy work." (Barbara Gowdy, author of The White Bone and Little Sister)

"The most surprising and beautiful travel guide to a journey we will all have to make. Janie Brown has accompanied many great souls through their final days on earth, and what she has learned she offers us now in this exquisite book about life." (Chris Cleave, author of Little Bee and Everyone Brave Is Forgiven)

"In the hands of a less talented writer, Radical Acts of Love would read like case studies instead of the beautiful and necessary stories they are. This book is a must-read. We have rituals for afterwards: funerals and celebrations of life, but little to help guide those facing death. Janie Brown's insights, distilled from decades of looking after cancer patients, are both sensitive and practical as well as profoundly compassionate. Tending to the heart and spirit of the terminally ill is as important as making the right medical decisions - decisions that become easier once patients have made peace with themselves and loved ones." (Janie Chang, author of Dragon Springs Road)