Wrongful Death: A Medical Tragedy

Sandra Gilbert's husband, Elliot, underwent surgery for prostate cancer at a major medical center, and then inexplicably died hours later in the recovery room. To this day, no one from the hospital has told his family how or why he died.

In February, 1991, Elliot Gilbert checked into the hospital for routine surgery. One day later, he was dead. Wrongful Death is a searingly frank and gripping account of his family's experience with a medical disaster that occurs often but is rarely discussed. It shows how vulnerable we all are to the power of the medical establishment.

"A wrenching tale of medical mistakes, death, shock, grief, and frustration, told with love and anger."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Publishers Weekly

``Because my husband, superb storyteller though he was, could not tell his own story, I have had to tell his story for him.'' This powerful memoir revisits and examines the 1991 death of poet and feminist scholar Gilbert's (No Man's Land) husband Elliot following prostate cancer surgery at the University of California Davis Medical Center. She and her family, suspecting medical negligence, engaged a lawyer and investigated the circumstances of the death; in 1992 they settled their lawsuit out of court. The memoir recounts the events preceding Elliot's death and leading up to and beyond the legal resolution. But its power lies in the writer's anger and her grief, and in her all-consuming determination: her book is a moving and extended meditation on moral obsession. It is also about the strained but stalwart emotional resources of a family. And it's a book likely to reach a broad readership among those who are increasingly suspicious of the medical establishment or who have suffered an abrupt loss like the author's. She is a professor of English at the University of California, Davis, as was her husband. (Feb.)

Sandra M. Gilbert is the author of numerous volumes of criticism and poetry, as well as a memoir. She is coeditor (with Susan Gubar) of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. A Distinguished Professor of English emerita at the University of California, Davis, she lives in Berkeley, California.