Ten Clear Days - by Eric Beck Rubin (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

When a Holocaust survivor requests medical assistance in dying, it divides her family. Over ten increasingly tense days, we come to know her story and its final outcome.

On a Tuesday night in August 2018, eighty-three-year-old Mary Beck is rushed by ambulance to the hospital. She wakes up to the news that her surgery was a success and her recovery is underway-but she doesn't want to hear it. She had been preparing for her end. And with newly enacted legislation, she can demand it.

Before a decision can be made on whether to grant her request, a member of the non-medical hospital staff, "Au." is brought in to record the unfolding events. But what begins as an arm's-length report during ten mandated days that Mary awaits her fate, soon turns into a sweeping examination of a life.

From her upbringing in pre-war Hungary and survival of the war, to the start of her new life in North America, Mary, along with her family and friends, tell the story of this complicated, forceful, fiercely loved person at every stage of her extraordinary life. A life she now fights to end on her own terms.

Review Quotes

Praise for Ten Clear Days

"This is a beautiful and important book about the end of life and what a life adds up to. It is written in a precise and delicate way, which allows us readers to witness even more clearly and deliberately those hazy and confused last days of a loved one's life. It is also a very sensitive look at assisted death and the feelings and rights of the person who wants to die, weighed up against the family."
--Sheila Heti, author of Alphabetical Diaries

"Scrupulously observed and emotionally crushing, Ten Clear Days tells the harrowing story of one family's experience with medically assisted death. Alternating between the claustrophobic world of Mary Beck's hospital room and her childhood in Hungary leading up to the Holocaust, the novel asks profound questions about what it means to let go of someone we love. Beck Rubin wields language like a scalpel, precise and unflinching. You've never read anything quite like this before."
--Alison Pick, author of Far to Go

Praise for Eric Beck Rubin

"Rubin writes with grace and exactitude, giving a tangible, animated quality to the sensual world of his story.... [T]his is a luminous, quiet storm of a novel that resounds long after its heartbreaking coda." --Diana Evans, The Guardian

"This debut shows [Eric Beck Rubin]'s a talent to watch." --Jade Colbert, Globe and Mail (Canada)

"A hugely impressive first novel...gripping and emotional." --David Nicholls, internationally bestselling author of One Day and Us

"Rubin's dark, emotional jewel of a debut is both as lyrical as a symphony and as shocking as a slap.... It's so absolutely gripping that I was clutching the pages. I can't stop thinking about it." --Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

About the Author

Eric Beck Rubin is a novelist and academic. His début, School of Velocity, was named one of the Guardian's Books of the Year. He created and produced the Burning Books literary review and interview podcast, which ran for seven years. His academic work looks at how history is transformed through literature, monuments, and memorials. He teaches architectural and cultural history at the University of Toronto and collaborates with art galleries and architecture firms on exhibitions and design competitions. He lives in Toronto.