Naked Singularity

A novel by Victoria N. Alexander

The Permanent Press, Sag Harbor, NY, 2002, www.thepermanentpress.com

Reviewed by Bill Creasy

Euthanasia is a medical ethical problem that is simple to state in general as a right to die or a right not to suffer. It is much more complex in practice, though. A terminally ill person, who may not be able to make decisions, must rely on family members who are emotional, grief-stricken, and vulnerable, and who are forced to make painful decisions.

This is the subject of an excellent novel by Victoria Alexander. The novel is about a young woman, Hali MacDonald, whose father has terminal cancer of the throat, after a lifetime of pipe smoking. He asks her, rather than her two sisters, to help him perform euthanasia if it becomes necessary. The novel follows her conflicted thoughts and actions as she tries to fulfill his wishes. Meanwhile, she must cope with her sisters, mother, stepmother, and husband. To add more conflict, two nurses are hired to care for the father; one is close to turning Hali in, and another helps her for his own questionable motives. The characterization of all these individuals is convincing. The relationship between Hali and her father is very touching and illustrates the way that interactions between fathers and daughters change over time.

The novel is written in an interesting style that is not strictly linear, but is more like memory. In the course of the events, the heroine reflects on questions of the meaning of lives and actions in a secular humanist framework. For example, Hali thinks, "The body is a thing. A man dies, and that is all of him. All that he ever was was in his movements." The Naked Singularity of the title refers to the first uncaused cause of the Big Bang and the universe, which Hali thinks of as a physical effect, not God.

Euthanasia is an important subject, and Ms. Alexander has done a commendible effort in examining a morally and emotionally difficult situation.