Carlo Leget.  2017.  Jessica Kingsley Publishers.  216p.

Leget recasts the medieval principles of Ars moriendi (‘the art of dying’) into the 21st century, elaborating the five elements of faith, hope, love, patience and humility.  While exploring different perspectives on death the book seeks to demystify it in a humane and spiritual way.

In terms of approaching and accepting the end of life, Leget frequently refers to ‘inner space’ as an important concept: “a metaphor … situated at the crossroads of spirituality, psychology, chaplaincy, ethics and social work”.  ‘Six roads’ making the concept more accessible and concrete are humour, the body, emotions, virtues, spiritual traditions, and silence.

Leget notes that “every life story can be told in a million different ways” and that “our own life story is part of the life stories of many other people”.  He is critical of purely medical models that emphasize control and relinquish responsibility to someone else, as well as neoliberal approaches which cast everyone as entrepreneurs and push us to ‘doing’ when not acting or performing may be a better course of action.  Instead, Leget proposes narrative interconnectedness and the need to embrace multiple and often contradictory meanings around death.