Intervals

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024

What makes a good death? A good daughter?

In 2009, with her forties and a wave of austerity on the horizon, Marianne Brooker's mother was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She made a workshop of herself and her surroundings, combining creativity and activism in unlikely ways, but over time her ability to work, to move and to live without pain diminished drastically.

In Intervals, Brooker charts her care for her mother as she stopped eating and drinking in a bid to end her suffering. They find solace in shared rituals: reading tarot, listening to music and making art.

Tying their intimate experience to wider social conditions, Brooker explores the role of doulas, advance directives and the precarious economics of social, hospice and funeral care, as well as the work of various writers—from Anne Boyer and Donald Winnicott to Maggie Nelson and Lola Olufemi—to imagine care otherwise.

A blend of memoir, polemic and feminist philosophy, Intervals is a deeply moving work that harnesses the political potential of grief to raise essential questions about choice, interdependence and end-of-life care.