In The Slender Margin

About this book

A journey into the land of death and dying seen through the lens of art and the imagination Part memoir part meditation on death itself In the Slender Margin is an exploration of death from an insiders point of view. Using the threads of her brothers early death and her twenty years of work at a hospice Joseph utilizes history religion philosophy literature personal anecdote mythology poetry and pop culture to discern the unknowable and to illuminate her travels through the land of the dying. The book is neither an academic text nor a self-help manual; rather it is a rumination on death dying and the mystery that awaits us all. Rather than relying solely on narrative In the Slender Margin gains momentum from a buildup of thematic resonances. In the process of thinking deeply about death Joseph finds the brother she lost as a young girl. She wrote this book as a way to understand what she had seen: the mysterious and the horrendous. Replete with literary allusions and references ranging from Joan Didion and Susan Sontag to D.H. Lawrence and Voltaire among many other literary voices the result is an absorbing and inspired consideration of how we die and how we deal with death.