Une mort très douce

Simone de Beauvoir recounts the last weeks of her mother, Françoise, who is hospitalized in Paris in 1963 after a fall and found to have cancer. De Beauvoir and her sister Poupette visit daily, wrestle with the doctors' choices about what to tell their mother, and watch her struggle and decline. The author reflects on the unease of mortality, the contradictions in her relationship with her mother, and how the experience changed her own view of death. The tone is spare and direct, and it avoids sentiment.

It suits readers who want a short, honest account of caring for a dying parent. Those drawn to existentialist writing in a personal, human register will find it affecting.

Deep, inward-looking and contemplative; an easy read.

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