Last Writes

'Last Writes is a beautiful, comforting, and unflinchingly honest portrayal of the intricacies of long term friendship between two women, one dying, both giving and taking care. Though caregiving a friend is and will be a part of most of our lives, published stories about these relationships are all too rare. Laurel Richardson once again has opened a new space for autoethnographic and intimate scholarship as she invites readers into her inner, relational, and sociological experience of friendship, dying, and personal writing. Last Writes gave me a greater appreciation of the obligations and rewards of deep friendship, the meanings of giving and receiving, and the intensely personal ethics of writing first-person accounts. I will use this in my classes-qualitative methods, autoethnography, emotions, communicating grief and loss-and give copies to all my friends. This story is a literary and sociological gift to us all.' Carolyn Ellis, University of South Florida