Staying Close: A Positive Approach to Dying and Bereavement

This volume explores how we are learning to cope with death in a secular age. Waterhouse explores how care of the dying is changing, and the new approaches to funerals and bereavement, basing the book on interviews with health professionals, with those facing death and with the bereaved. He relates individual stories to the wider social, ethical and medical problems, and though some of the stories show painful experiences, they also reveal people's resilience and courage. Underpinning the book is the idea that the more pro-active we are, the better will be our experiences of dying and grieving.

Michael Waterhouse was born in St Asaph in North Wales. He read English at Cambridge, did a PhD at Oxford, and became a documentary television producer, at one time Series Producer of the BBC's Heart of the Matter. He writes for the New Statesman and the Literary Review, and is on the Department of Health's Gene Therapy Advisory Committee. He lives in Kent, with his wife and two children.