Love Life: A Novel - Softcover

Kluun, Ray

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312366817 ISBN 13: 9780312366810

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007

Synopsis

Dan and Carmen have it all, it seems: They are young, rich, good-looking, satisfied in their work and love life, and are the parents of a beautiful three-year-old daughter. When Carmen is diagnosed with breast cancer, Dan is unable to cope with her illness and the changes this brings to their happy, yuppie family life. While the beautiful and optimistic Carmen submits to chemotherapy and eventually a mastectomy, hedonistic Dan tries to find solace with his buddies and in several flings before he finally stops running away and succeeds in supporting Carmen in her decision to end her life with dignity. Love Life is an account of a terminal illness that is devoid of glitz or fake sentiment. Distressing hospital situations and spot-on characterizations of doctors and therapists alternate with the many heart-wrenching moments through the course of Carmen's illness, as both she and Dan come to terms with what commitment really means. Love Life is completely unapologetic, extremely controversial, but ultimately uplifting and life-affirming.

About this title

About the Author

After Ray Kluun’s thirty-six-year-old wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and died in 2001, he moved to Australia with his small daughter and began writing Love Life, which is modeled on his own experiences. Kluun now lives in Amsterdam and has just published a follow-up novel, The Widower.

Reviews

In the Dutch Kluun's brutal roman à clef, Dan and Carmen van Diepen are successful professionals in their 30s, raising their young daughter in Amsterdam's suburbs while still partying zestfully, when Carmen's diagnosis with an aggressive form of breast cancer puts her life on hold. Dan, who narrates, soon rages against the incompetence and insensitivity of the doctors treating Carmen, and the couple alternate between manic joy and terror as they realize Carmen won't live to see their daughter, Luna, grow up. At the same time, confirmed club hound Dan pursues numerous infidelities, comments on his greatly diminished affection for his stricken wife and offers few apologies. As Carmen grows increasingly ill, they learn to forgive each other's faults, and Dan takes on the heavy burden of Carmen's decline. The final chapters find Carmen, Dan and their colorful cohort of yuppie friends pulling together to support Carmen's decision to end her life with dignity. Kluun's novel was a bestseller in Europe, and the translation is poignant, humorous and very graphic on the cancer. Kluun's take on marriage may be too European for the States, but his lacerating portraits of the medical establishment will certainly hit home. (Aug.)
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In this wrenching, humorous, compelling novel based on his wife's death at 36 from breast cancer, Kluun turns on a dime. Reacting to wife Carmen's anxiety about chemo baldness, husband Dan is at first wry, but then desolation sets in: Carmen is afraid of losing her breast. I'm afraid of losing the Carmen I know. A lonely anxiety I don't share with anyone. Maybe I attach more importance to Carmen's breast than I do to Carmen's life? The many side effects of chemo the body's protest against it ultimately aren't as bad as the increasingly painful and difficult insertions of needle and tube. Throughout, Carmen's spirit surprises. When her swelling belly (a side effect) conjures thoughts of shopping for maternity clothes, We're hoping for a boy, she ironically gushes. She leaves Dan when he drunkenly crashes the car after carousing with other women, but reconciles with him, chooses euthanasia, welcomes final visitors, and says good-bye. Scott, Whitney

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312366817
• ISBN 13: 9780312366810
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368