Dying in the Red Chair

Is it bravery or cowardice to hasten death when there is no hope of living? Is it selfish or selfless to avoid the inevitable decline and dependence? Is it a sin? Alone in her beautiful house, a newly widowed woman wrestles with these questions, knowing only that “the silence was nothing like a silence she had known.”

Dying in the Red Chair follows the decades-long relationship between Etta, an empathetic OB/GYN, and Arnie, a pragmatic ER doctor, as they build a life, a family, and a medical career in rural Kentucky. When Arnie is diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, his lifelong belief in controlling his own death becomes an imminent reality. To honor the man she loves, Etta must navigate her own grief, a strict religious upbringing, and the ethical complexities of terminal illness to support Arnie's choice of Medical Aid in Dying.
Shifting gracefully from the chaotic, high-stakes emergency bays of a rural hospital to the quiet sanctuary of the Appalachian woods, this poignant novel explores life, medicine, and mortality. In a powerful narrative twist—reflecting how we can never truly know another's mind—the story is told from everyone's perspective except the dying man’s. Through Etta and her daughter’s eyes, Dying in the Red Chair delivers a profound exploration of human connection, showing how building a life occurs in slow time, while the end of a life happens in fast time.