Promotional Information

A USA TODAY Bestseller
An NPR "Book We Love"
A finalist for the California Book Award

“A poem to mortality and the beauty of how we can cope with it.” —Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal

New York Times-bestselling artist Wendy MacNaughton shares wisdom from hospice caregivers: how to be, when to help, what to say—with full-color drawings throughout.

About the Author

Wendy MacNaughton is a New York Times–bestselling artist, illustrator, and graphic journalist with a degree in social work who combines these practices to tell the stories of people who are often overlooked. She has illustrated and/or authored eleven books, including Salt Fat Acid Heat, The Gutsy Girl, and Meanwhile in San Francisco: The City in Its Own Words. Her visual storytelling series Meanwhile was the New York Times’s first weekly drawn journalism column. The creator of DrawTogether and co-founder of Women Who Draw, she lives in the Bay Area.
Instagram/Twitter/YouTube @wendymac / wendymacnaughton.com

Reviews

Tenderly illustrated... [MacNaughton] distills hours of sitting, being there and waiting into a beautiful reminder that death is a part of living and that we can learn from it. “Follow their lead.” “Just be there.” “Cry. A lot.” This “how-to” guide about dying reminds the living to embrace the present and deepen our relationships.
*NPR, "Books We Love"*

Stunningly touching.
*Steven Levitt, Freakonomics Radio*

Quietly powerful … Wendy MacNaughton’s gentle drawings are followed by a deep well of resources for the dying and those who love and care for them.
*Bookpage, starred review*

A tender illustrated field guide to being present … The book’s beating heart is an invitation to grow comfortable with change, with uncertainty, with vulnerability.
*Maria Popova, The Marginalian*

Words are spare, poignant, and practical: 'If you don't know what to say, start by saying that. That's very vulnerable.' An introduction from a hospice physician and a list of resources round this out as a perfect library book: one that everyone could use, one time or another.
*Booklist*

There are many kinds of grace in this little book . . . [there is an] underlying kindness that runs throughout.
*Rebecca Solnit, author of HOPE IN THE DARK*

Accessible, profound, moving, and beautiful. A unique and much-needed addition to the literature about death and dying.
*Louise Aronson, MD, author of ELDERHOOD*

Like singing bowls whose sounds reverberate through us, MacNaughton's drawings resonate emotional tones of the tender moments she deftly portrays.
*Ira Byock, MD, author of DYING WELL*

With keen eyes, a skillful hand, and a warm heart, MacNaughton has created a teaching manual on how to say goodbye . . . a gift to all of us as we face death in its many forms.
*Mary Pipher, author of WOMEN ROWING NORTH*

This beautiful little book is luminous and dark, heavy and light, heartbreaking and glorious. It's a gift to see the world through Wendy MacNaughton's eyes.
*Lucy Kalanithi, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine*

A modern legend in the field of American illustration...[her] illustrations skitter across the page with delicate intensity, like fresh fuzzy roots meeting soil.
*Saveur*

We've been enamored of artist-graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton's breezy-yet-hyper-perceptive sketches, humanizing portraits, and urban tableaus for years now... the SF resident [is] something like our illustrator laureate.
*San Francisco Bay Guardian*

[MacNaughton is] like a modern-day Margaret Mead armed with ink and watercolor, not a critic or commentator but an observer and amplifier of voice.
*BrainPickings*