The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

Milt Shields sees life as something to conquer and death as something to stave off; he eats right, gets lots of exercise and enjoys good jokes. Milt is 97 years old and the quasi-subject of son David's new genre-jumping book about nothing less than life and death. In THE THING ABOUT LIFE IS THAT ONE DAY YOU'LL BE DEAD, the author explores his relationship with his elderly and somewhat eccentric father by examining the biology and physiology of life.

Shields describes the processes of the aging human body with clinical detail ("At 65, you've lost one ounce of your three-pound brain and one-tenth of your brain cells."). He starts with the newborn and takes readers on an honest journey through the life of the body. But this book is also a memoir in addition to a catalog of metabolic functions and medical curiosity. Besides his father, his teenage daughter Natalie is an important character; her youth and athleticism, her optimism and potential a direct contrast to Milt's age, fear and impotence. Shields, in his early 50s, is the counterbalance between the two. His back aches and he has gone bald, but he still finds joy in life and the occasional pickup game of basketball.

These days, it seems, Shields is often frustrated by his father's obsession with death. But then again, the man is 97 years old, and despite his best efforts, Shields realizes that he will die soon. In this heartbreaking and sometimes unexpectedly funny work of nonfiction, both father and son grapple with mortality, and their approaches and philosophies are quite different. Milt hopes physical activity and a spartan diet will prolong his life (and barring that, that science will soon find the key to indefinite longevity). Shields, however, is choosing to find the beauty and irony in being born only to die. "Life, in my view," the author writes, "is simple, tragic, and eerily beautiful."

The medical details of THE THING ABOUT LIFE are recorded with professional detachment. Shields's style is journalistic and matter of fact. Yet, when he shares stories of his father's antics as a baseball umpire, ladies man and octogenarian golfer, and of his daughter from her birth to her transformation into a girl rollerskating with friends, his tone is tender and sensitive.

While nicely written and quite interesting ("beginning in your early 20s, your ability to detect salty or bitter things decreases, as does your ability to identify odors."), it is hard to define this book. It is peppered liberally with quotes about life and death from such varied figures as Lauren Bacall, Cotton Mather, Greek philosopher Anaxarchus and Virginia Woolf. Sometimes this mix of fact and quote added to the personal ruminations results in a compelling and unique read, but occasionally it is a bit too dry and cumbersome.

What could've been a depressing look at the futility of life in the face of the inevitability of death and one man's often-strained relationship with his father is actually sort of uplifting without being sappy or insincere. THE THING ABOUT LIFE is quirky and quick, graphic and thought provoking, and its generally upbeat tone belies the dead seriousness of its subject.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

The Thing about Life does a great job in provoking digestive and introspective pauses and renormalization of your real values. For my taste , the chapters on the physical and mental declines after the age of ,say, eight, are a bit too much of overwhelming re-iteration of the same issue and less than compensated for by the hidden lust for lifes' wonders of the author (and me), thus leaving you with mixed feelings at the end of the book ( if you make it that far)
On the negative side, the appearance of the book itself - very low paper quality, rather sloppy look of the almost torn irregular page edges- is below par

With this title I would think people would be put off and not even leaf through a few pages. I concur with the praises listed on the book's back cover and plan on gifting some copies to my baby boomer "kids" a couple of whom are in various stages of emotional distress. I think that here they will find context and perspective in one of the funniest non-fiction books I've read in a long time.

This book reads like an encyclopedia, incorporating facts , which although extremely interesting in themselves, detract from the story line making it tedious.

I expected this to be more on the Philosophical side of the story but is nothing more than an Anatomy Book. Very disappointing!!!!!!!!!! Get it if you want to know how many bones has a baby's body vs. an adult's one but other than that, completely boring. The title gets you AND the content is horrible. I couldn't read more than 4 chapters!