What is a good death? How would you choose to live your last few months? How do we best care for the rising tide of very elderly? This unusual and important book is a series of reflections on death in all its forms: the science of it, the medicine, the tragedy and the comedy. Dr David Jarrett draws on family stories and case histories from his thirty years of treating the old, demented and frail to try to find his own understanding of the end. And he writes about all the conversations that we, our parents, our children, the medical community, our government and society as a whole should be having. Profound, provocative, strangely funny and astonishingly compelling, it is an impassioned plea that we start talking frankly and openly about death. And it is a call to arms for us to make radical changes to our perspective on 'the seventh age of man'.

A good death -- A bad death -- Why do we age? -- Good ageing -- Awareness of mortality -- Death on a plate -- A journey into the past -- Imitations of mortality -- How to kill a patient: Part 1 -- Pummelled to death -- New ways of dying -- The rising tide -- In it for the long haul -- DV ina 2CV -- Mum -- Damned if you do and damned if you don't -- Dad -- How doctors die -- Living statements and living wills -- TACI talk -- Letting go -- The changing landscape of care -- St John Chapter 11 Verse 35 -- Dying a la Mode -- Joyce -- Wafer-thin margins and modern medicine -- Tales from the portkabin -- Experts -- A different drum -- The ardbeg solution -- Futility with a capital G -- Tithonus revisited -- Four last songs.