RING

Do people need to remember how to live before they decide to die?

In a series of episodic sketches, Lerner’s narrator, Lee, recounts the feelings of depression and apathy they experienced after the death of their beloved daughter, Rachel, as well as the other disabling effects of their complicated grief. Lee, who is nonbinary, raised Rachel with their wife, Susan, who approached the ambiguous circumstances surrounding Rachel’s death differently than Lee, by methodically seeking out information and certainty. After Susan moves out of the family’s Madison, Wisconsin, home, Lee, frozen by psychic pain and in retreat from almost all social interaction, seeks a resolution to their seemingly intractable grief and embarks upon a journey to the Seven Pillars Sanctuary in remote, snowbound northern Canada. The Seven Pillars Society, formed as a religious group, provides therapeutic intervention for people who can’t see the sense in continuing their lives. Each “pillar” represents a “journey through a layer of the self, where the seventh pillar was the end of the line…” The end of the line for some who seek shelter at the sanctuary is a final, solo walk out into the snow, providing a supported and informed end to a life of suffering. It is this resolution that Lee seeks. With a sympathetic and thoughtful delivery, Lerner portrays Lee’s experiences and conveys the complexities and nuances of assisted suicide. At the sanctuary, the issue is approached as a matter of assisted living, where the residents receive training in nutrition, meditation, yoga, and other therapeutic interventions—including the companionship of a dog named Ring, in Lee’s case. Although the final decision about reaching the seventh pillar will be Lee’s, the sanctuary staff ensures that anyone seeking shelter there knows how to live before choosing to take the final walk into the snow.

Touching and thought-provoking, with potential triggers for some readers.