A good death

Beyond a witty recollection of tender care-giving and negotiating the health care system, John Noonan’s memoir reveals a unique perspective on life and love. When John and Chris exchanged rings in an idyllic private ceremony on Martha’s Vineyard, they didn’t suspect what their life together would become. A relentless round of hospital visits featuring a heartless receptionist and but one empathetic doctor. The giving and taking of multiple medications, some with unexpected bipolar side effects. And that it would ultimately end, as it began, in their own private and extraordinary way. John Noonan died suddenly in 2007. It seems fitting that he did not have to suffer from a long illness after having cared for his partner, Christopher Clements, through his six-year battle with AIDS. It had been eight years since Chris’s death, but Chris and the good death were never far from John’s thoughts.