Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics Paperback – February 24, 2009

I wanted very much to like this book, and I did--but only somewhat.The Terri Schiavo material began to seem like filler to me and made me lose interest in the rest of the book. I followed the Schiavo case rather closely when it was in the news, and I didn't buy this book expecting more re-hash of it--but that's what I got.

I found Eleanor's book to be a very emotional and poignant story. She points out the struggles we have as a society and individually of dealing with end-of-life issues and appropriate care for the patient.

If you love the way Eleanor Clift stands up to the conservatives on the MacLaughlin Group, you'll enjoy and sympathize with her touching memoir.She details the difficult but compassionate decision many people have to make.

couldn't get into it.

This book was horrendous on many levels. Most shocking was the heartless and callous manner in which the author treated a dying husband. Dying goldfish have been treated with more compassion. She sets her incapaciated husband up in a hospital bed in the middle of the living room and basically leaves him there like a potted plant while she continues her life as usual (she sleeps far away in the bedroom upstairs) and business as usual (she's on a business trip and can't 'make it back' for her husband's BRAIN surgery!!!). She would have done her husband a huge favor by putting him away in a nursing home somewhere. At least ther he would have had some human attention if he needed it in the middle of the night. The way she set it up, she left a completely helpless human being completely alone while she sashayed up to the bedroom and closed the door firmly in case god forbid she'd hear the sound of a struggle or a cry for help. And it will probably be edited out as a spolier so I won't include it here, but the man's last hours are so horrifyingly lonely and frightening that the author's behavior seems borderline sadistic. This woman is in stunning denial and has very, very deeply rooted psychological problems. If you can get past that, the book is equally awful on several other levels.Thematically, this book also fails completely. Clearly in need of a "gimmick" to sell a book, the author claims it is an account of two parallel ends of life, that of her hubsand and of Terri Schiavo. Unfortunately, the two have absolutely nothing in common - medically, ethically, or in any other way. And, the book does not cover a "two week" period as the title states, but several years of the decline of two individuals whose conditions have absolutely nothing to do with one another.Lastly, the author's attempt at moving away from political journalism (her profession) to novel writing falls flat on its face. In addition to the thematic confusion and the disturbing lack of compassion displayed for her husband, the book goes off the deep end numerous times discussing dated and irrelevant political minutia about the politics surrounding the schiavo case. While the court decisions surrounding the case are of course relevant, the author rambles on for pages at a time about the minor players in the Florida Governor's cabinet and other dated drivel that no one picking up the book - or that no one in general - really cares about twenty years later. Do we really need to know the politics behind a local police department that no longer exists?This is trash. Save your money! And Ms. Clift, please get some professional help.

Mixed emotions. Not the Tom Brazaitis I knew so very well in college, decades before the author knew him.I don't believe in his heart he was an atheist, even though he told me so.I pray for him every night. God is merciful. Tom now knows there is a God and a heaven because he is thereand realizes that our final destiny is Eternal Happiness with Christ in Paradise. Luke 23:43

You probably know Eleanor Clift, or at least know of her. On Sundays, she's the one being yelled at on The McLaughlin Group. Anyone who's seen that show knows she is a tough professional who stands her ground. This book proves it. Even in the hardest of times, Clift is a journalist to the core. She declares in the early pages that this is a love story, and indeed it is, as she records the love she shared with her husband, Tom Brazaitis, as together they faced his spreading cancer and eventual death. But it is more than a memoir.At the same time she is recording in precise and difficult detail the last two weeks of Tom's life lived peacefully in the living room of their home with the help of hospice, she tells of another story of life and death taking place in Florida--that of Terri Schiavo. Terri Schiavo's story dominated the news as her husband and parents debated the decision of continuing to sustain Terri's life. The governor and courts of Florida became involved, and then the dispute was taken to congress and the president. While Clift was caring for Tom every night, she was involved as a journalist and commentator covering the Schiavo controversy. Her husband, also a journalist, had insisted early on that Clift continue her professional commitments. She did.Now she has taken these two simultaneous events and combined them into an account that is both an intense personal memoir and a clear analysis of the hard decisions that face families when a loved one's life is ending. She gives her story clearly while she weaves in the Schiavo story in even-handed reporting. "I'm a journalist by training and instinct. That reporting is the vehicle for my journey to make sense of the physical, ethical and moral issues legitimately raised by both sides in the debate," Clift explains in the preface to the book.This is a difficult topic, but one that most of us will have to face at some point. While the book is serious and straightforward, it is not difficult to read. In fact, it is a pleasure both to share the personal story and to benefit from Clift's clear writing. The inclusion at book's end of several columns written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer by Brazaitis across the course of his struggle makes the story even more tender and personal.by Patricia Nordyke Pandofor Story Circle Book Reviewsreviewing books by, for, and about women