Rebecca's Reviews > Last Things: A Graphic Memoir of Loss and Love

“You’re not aware of last things,” Moss, a children’s book author/illustrator, writes in this wrenching memoir of losing her husband to ALS. That is, we look forward to and celebrate all of life’s firsts, but we never know until afterwards when we’ve experienced a last. The author’s husband, Harvey Stahl, was a medieval art historian working on a book about Louis IX’s prayer book. As the book opens, they were in Rome with their three boys for Harvey’s sabbatical year, but when they got back to Berkeley they decided Harvey’s fatigue needed a doctor’s attention. ALS is always a devastating diagnosis, but Harvey had the particularly severe bulbar variety, and his lungs were quick to succumb. His battery-powered ventilator led to many scares – one time Moss had to plug him into the wall at a gas station and rush home for a spare battery – and he also underwent an emergency tracheotomy surgery.

This is a very emotionally draining read. It’s so distressing to see how, instead of drawing closer and relying on each other, Marisa and Harvey drifted apart. Harvey pushed everyone away and focused on finishing his book and returning to his academic duties. He refused to accept his limitations and resisted necessary medical interventions. Meanwhile, Moss struggled with the unwanted role of caregiver while trying not to neglect her children and her own career. “I feel thin and easily torn, like a paper doll,” she writes. Most of the time it was pasta for dinner every night. She gives a clear sense of how impossible daily life became when Harvey’s condition was never stable but always deteriorating.

I’ve read several nonfiction books about ALS now, including Bruce Kramer’s We Know How This Ends and Dan Marshall’s Home Is Burning. The former is probably falsely optimistic, while the latter is unpleasantly cynical. Moss gets the tone just right, though. She’s a reliable witness to a medical and bureaucratic nightmare and the way disease tore through their family. At the distance of years, though, she can write about her experience without bitterness and trace how they’ve put their lives back together. I can see this being especially helpful to older teens with a terminally ill parent.

Releases May 1st.