The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

In his latest non-fiction provocation, Shields writes from the vexed perspective of mid-life on a topic most of us would just as soon avoid: death. The results are amazing. "The Thing About Life" is so much more than memoir. On one level, it's the story of the author's ongoing psychic contest with his aging father, a supernaturally robust 90-something whose reaction to a heart attack on the tennis court is to suck it up until his chance to land a winning smash. But this autobiographical material is cut with life science factoids (reminiscent of Desmond Morris) and philosophical musings (from Aristotle to Woody Allen) that kick the book into a sort of existential overdrive. A fast, funny, deep, dark and ultimately really very moving investigation of what it means to be alive.

There are some lofty topics that writers--for good reason--hesitate to take on: the meaning of life, the nature of love, what women want, and the pesky issue of mortality are a few that top the list. In a filmed interview, the usually undaunted Jacques Derrida balked when asked, "What is love?" And while he eventually rallied when reminded that all the Greek philosophers spoke of the nature of love (no self-respecting philosopher could ignore that throwing down of the glove), his resistance reminded me that even intellectual heavyweights want to shrug off the tough work of tackling The Big Questions. The Thing about Life is That One Day You'll be Dead is a bold book that explores this odd duality that exists in each of us: we know we'll die--one day--but we're also quite sure this won't happen to us, somehow we'll be the exception. Reading Shields' book, I became aware that this belief of immortality informs everything we do--toe tapping in line in the grocery store, mindless TV watching, cursing the rain--all speak of our subterranean certainty that we'll be around till the end of time. It's a quirky book, almost outrageous in its structure that follows the decline of the human body, and one well worth reading. And no, it's not depressing; Shields is as funny as he is insightful.

Shields' new book, The Thing About Life is that One Day You'll Be Dead, is like a mirror: it will look different for every reader. I am not quite middle-aged, and the book gave me a jolt I appreciated: "Get up and live!" Thinking of them often as I read, I had to wonder what it might be like for my 20-something siblings or 50-year-old parents or 60-year-old in-laws or 90-year-old grandparents to read the book. Different, certainly, than it was for me. The book is such a powerful arrangement of narrative, thought, and data that I hesitated, out of deference to the taboo on suggesting that humans die, to send my family copies. But I had to. And I know they will not be able to put the book down, because reading The Thing About Life... feels like watching a train wreck and a beautiful birth at the same time. I'm picky about the books I open. I'm even more picky about the books I finish. I find that my interest in many nonfiction books (the only kind I read these days) tends to peter out a third of the way through. The Thing About Life..., though, compelled me to the last page--as if I couldn't imagine how it would end. A page-turner of an essay--what a feat. This book is wiser and richer than Mary Roach's Stiff; it invites the reader to peer inside and get reacquainted with the body and soul staring back.

David Shields is miffed. His adolescent daughter is a soccer prodigy, romping on the pitch with nary an ache or pain. His father steams towards 100, still vital and prickly in a Catskills stud kind of way. Shields himself is fifty and feels every one of his years. Hangovers are no longer physical but metaphysical, his back is shot and he's developed an obsession with death. But it's the obsession of a man who, for all his gripes, is engaged in life. Death is a shark out there hovering. But until you put the blood in the water, the shark stays put. Shields offers alternating chapters of objective data on the body's demise and famous commentary on The Big Sleep with subjective epigrams of pique and pathos. Shields laments but never mopes. He is in awe (and peevishly envious) of his father who somehow has figured out the cosmic joke of existence yet never pauses long enough to let the realization that the joke is on us get him down. This is a great book, subversive in its brevity and ferocity. A communique of rabbit punches.

Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? In The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, David Shields has united a brilliant combination of lyrical narrative, factual information, and deep, personal emotion. Shields uses everything from Marx to Darwin to the enchanting (and disenchanting) measurements of science to tell the story of his elderly father. Through the subtle interweaving of passionate concern and objective observation, we see a narrator emerge that is desperately seeking closure, connection, recognition, independence. I felt the pangs of my own insecure teenage years, growing into my body, paired with the inevitable pain of a future middle-age (slowly growing out of it). Shields expertly unites both of these themes. His book, with its wonderfully personal story, pulls you close the cold, scientific realities of the decaying body push you back. In each motion, we see the author struggling to understand the emotions he has towards his father, and towards his own body. He loves it, he hates it--impartial time marches forward. These are movements that will speak to everyone. The power of Shields' writing comes from the fact that nothing is off limits. This book was a joy to read. One finds humor in its anecdotes, despair in its data, solace in its humanity. We feel the body changing, crumbling and yet there is so much to understand of each other--our whole is greater than the sum of our parts.