Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

In a year when Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on families, with loved ones dying sometimes alone in hospital or without the usual funeral rites, Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss mortality and what it means to have ‘a good death’.

In her latest book, Should We Stay Or Should We Go, the writer Lionel Shriver explores a number of alternative endings. The couple at the centre of her novel make a pact to end their lives when they hit 80, to avoid a slow decline either physically or mentally. As Shriver looks at how that decision might play out in reality, she’s arguing for a more open discussion about the end of life.

It’s a view shared by the consultant geriatrician David Jarrett. In 33 Meditations on Death – Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine he draws on family stories and case histories from his three decades treating those who become old and frail. Jarret’s book is an impassioned plea for everyone – old and young – to engage and make plans for the end.

The playwright Jack Thorne is part of the collaborative team (with designer Bunny Christie and director Jeremy Herrin) behind the National Theatre’s new play, After Life, based on Hirokazu Kore-eda's award-winning film. It follows a group of strangers as they grapple with the question: if you could spend eternity with just one precious memory, what would it be? Although all the characters are deceased, the play is a celebration of life, and about what matters to us most.

Photo credit: Mark Kohn Producer: Katy Hickman

In a year when Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on families, with loved ones dying sometimes alone in hospital or without the usual funeral rites, Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss mortality and what it means to have ‘a good death’.

In her latest book, Should We Stay Or Should We Go, the writer Lionel Shriver explores a number of alternative endings. The couple at the centre of her novel make a pact to end their lives when they hit 80, to avoid a slow decline either physically or mentally. As Shriver looks at how that decision might play out in reality, she’s arguing for a more open discussion about the end of life.

It’s a view shared by the consultant geriatrician David Jarrett. In 33 Meditations on Death – Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine he draws on family stories and case histories from his three decades treating those who become old and frail. Jarret’s book is an impassioned plea for everyone – old and young – to engage and make plans for the end.

The playwright Jack Thorne is part of the collaborative team (with designer Bunny Christie and director Jeremy Herrin) behind the National Theatre’s new play, After Life, based on Hirokazu Kore-eda's award-winning film. It follows a group of strangers as they grapple with the question: if you could spend eternity with just one precious memory, what would it be? Although all the characters are deceased, the play is a celebration of life, and about what matters to us most.

Photo credit: Mark Kohn Producer: Katy Hickman

Enjoy this Best of In the Bubble episode featuring Andy’s riveting conversation with The Atlantic's Ed Yong, the journalist Andy thinks has done the best job writing about and analyzing the pandemic. We’re highlighting this conversation in part because Ed recently returned to writing about the pandemic after a few months away on book leave. They discuss America's failed response, how this whole thing might end, and why wanting things to go back to "normal" isn't the right mindset. 

Check out In the Bubble’s Twitter account @inthebubblepod.

Follow Ed Yong on Twitter @edyong209.

Keep up with Andy in D.C. on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. 

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Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

• Read all of Ed Yong’s COVID-19 reporting in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ed-yong/
• Check out The New York Times piece “The Pandemic in Six-Word Memoirs” Ed mentions in today’s show: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-poetry-memoirs.html
• Read the paper Ed talks about by historian Howard P. Segal on “America as Techno-Fix Nation:” https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/utopianstudies.28.2.0231

To follow along with a transcript and/or take notes for friends and family, go to www.lemonadamedia.com/show/in-the-bubble shortly after the air date.

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The most interesting conversations in American life now happen in private. This show is bringing them out of the closet. Stories no one else is telling and conversations with the most fascinating people in the country, every week from former New York Times and Wall Street Journal journalist Bari Weiss.

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