The Inevitable

BOOK OF THE YEAR IN SPECTATOR AND TIMES''Fascinating.... Deeply disturbing... Brilliant'' Sunday Times''Powerful and moving.'' Louis TherouxMeet Adam. He''s twenty-seven years old, articulate and attractive. He also wants to die. Should he be helped? And by whom? In The Inevitable, award-winning journalist Katie Engelhart explores one of our most abiding taboos: assisted dying. From Avril, the 80-year-old British woman illegally importing pentobarbital, to the Australian doctor dispensing suicide manuals online, Engelhart travels the world to hear the stories of those on the quest for a ''good death''. At once intensely troubling and profoundly moving, The Inevitable interrogates our most uncomfortable moral questions. Should a young woman facing imminent paralysis be allowed to end her life with a doctor''s help? Should we be free to die painlessly before dementia takes our mind? Or to choose death over old age? A deeply reported portrait of everyday people struggling to make impossible decisions, The Inevitable sheds crucial light on what it means to flourish, live and die.