Bedside Matters
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Rare Bird Books
Published:6th May '21
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Bedside Matters, the fifth novel by painter and writer Richard Alther, enlivens its singular setting with an unexpected journey at life's end for one man.
Walter had mastered the business world at an unaccounted cost to discover in old age and ill-health a disease that would render his body useless. Walter is a complicated man now captured in the gilded cage of his mansion, watching the world, his world, go by without him.
Visitors with agendas appear to remind him of his life and responsibilities: Walter's ex-wife Polly, a voluptuous handful as he would describe her, Paula, his chip-off-the-old block all-business daughter, Gavin, his attractive and irresponsible son with a dodgy track record, and the irrepressible daydreams and memories that flood his consciousness with emotions long shunned.
While Walter reads the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi's work, his inner life takes on a new shape, as his body continues to betray him and deteriorate. He says a long, reluctant goodbye while engaging a side to life that has been unexplored until now.
The natural world in the garden outside his window pleasures as he battles pain. New people enter his world to invigorate his last days, including his physical therapist Tressie, a woman so enticing he counts the minutes between visits.
Succession becomes an obsession with Paula as she builds her empire, and Gavin tries to start over again after another stint in rehab. Walter watches them play the game of life as he becomes a mere observer from the solitude of his stately manor, lost and found in his thoughts. For the first time, he seems to experience life as a poet would, even as the inevitable end comes closer.
A cinematic non-linear take and frank examination of the promise of life, even at its end, Bedside Matters concern us all at one time or another as we ask the ultimate question: what matters most?
“The vastly talented, ever-versatile Richard Alther has produced a bittersweet beauty of a novel about death and dying. Arch-crank tycoon Walter, one of Alther’s most complex characters, will remind some readers of the knight in The Seventh Seal playing chess with The Reaper. Except, instead of being back from the Crusades, Walter looks back on a life of too obsessively accumulating wealth and of emotional neglect of his family. His struggles toward redemption and peace are sometimes funny, always fascinating, and in the end profoundly moving.”
—Richard Stevenson, author of Killer Reunion, the latest Don Strachey detective novel
"Bedside Matters is a special blend of ethereal and spiritual reflection. Richard Alther creates a delightful interplay between various pieces of the end-of-life puzzle."
—Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review
"An introspective tale that offers a beautiful ending..."
—Kirkus Reviews
"With honesty and sensitivity, Alther makes this chronicle of a man’s choices examined inviting and restorative."
—Publishers Weekly
"Many of us imagine, and some even study, what death will be like, not physically, but spiritually. This beautifully-crafted narrative, which I slowly savored as both one who imagines and studies dying, provides a very thoughtful and enlightened awareness of letting go. Walter's process, guided in part by the Persian poet, Rumi, is possibly that of anyone graced with the time and circumstances to reflect on what's real, true, and important.”
—Brian McNaught, author of Now That I’m Out, What Do I Do?, Sex Camp, among other books, and veteran educator on LGBTQ issues
“Bedside Matters is a rich and articulate example of how truths fall into place towards the end of a life. Richard Alther has written with sensitive insight into the mystery of death.”
—Governor Madeleine M. Kunin, Former Governor of Vermont, Author of Coming of Age, My Journey to the Eighties
"Richard Alther's Bedside Matters offers readers an insightful and moving end-of-life narrative in the spirit of Paul Harding's Tinkers and William Gaddis's Agapē Agape. Challenged by physical decline and family intrigue, Walter transcends his corporeal prison to find larger meaning in art, philosophy, and literature. A work of depth, carefully wrought with nuance and delicately wrapped in wisdom and humor, Bedside Matters serves up a worthy exploration of and an antidote to the shortcomings of our material age."
—Jacob M. Appel, author of Millard Salter's Last Day
"More than a story of a man coming to terms with his life in its final chapter, Richard Alther's Bedside Matters provides meaningful insights to anyone interested in the process of letting go. His sensitively drawn main character takes us inside the complex psychological processes that make being in the moment much easier said than done. Even with our best efforts and good support, the myriad attachments we develop over a lifetime, to desire, expectations, people, possessions, and ideas, all keep circling back to clutter the pathway and entangle us. Alther's novel provides an empathic portrait of the struggle to break free and find peace.
—Bart Magee, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Founder and Executive Director of Access Institute for Psychological Services in San Francisco
ISBN: 9781644281635
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
280 pages