‘Intervals’ by Marianne Brooker

After living with primary progressive multiple sclerosis for ten years, in 2019 Marianne Brooker’s mother decided to end her life aged 49 by Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED), the most legal approximation of assisted dying available in the UK—other options are illegal. Brooker’s long-form essay explores the reasoning behind her mother’s decision, including as an act of resistance against the impacts of both her disease and the austerity policies of the UK government, which made it more difficult for her to live as an increasingly disabled person. Brooker describes how she and her mother meet with a potential death doula, cook a last meal together, and clinical aspects of care after she moved into her mum’s house, such as organising a living will or taking receipt of strong painkillers for professionals to use in an emergency. She then recounts her mother’s final days including visits from her friends, her gradual loss of speech and mobility, and the moment she stops breathing. The book ends with an account of the aftermath of her mum’s death – her makeshift funeral, an inquest, clearing her house, scattering her ashes – as well as Brooker’s own call for better funding for social and palliative care alongside legalisation of assisted dying. For Brooker, access to assisted dying should be part of a wider overhaul of the legal and healthcare systems based on social justice, in which assisted dying will only be safe and equitable when everyone can access money, support and advocacy throughout life.

The book gives a detailed exploration of the legal and practical ambiguities of VSED, a lesser-known legal option which allows determined individuals in the UK to end their own lives legally and with palliative care support. Along the way, Brooker explores the industrialised death industry, feminist philosophies of care, and the social justice issues affecting disabled and dying people like her mum, including the financial costs of staying alive. Notably, despite her mum’s story featuring in newspapers at the time, Brooker deliberately withholds her mum’s name, and her sister, who played an equal role in caring for her mum, is mentioned only once and also not named, apparently at her request. These elisions have the effect of focusing the book on Brooker’s own personal experiences and agenda, including her memories of childhood, her complex emotional reactions, and her demand for the moral debate around assisted dying to be contextual rather than binary, acknowledging the interdependent factors in any individual’s claims or desire to end their life due to suffering. Although the book is too new to have been cited in parliamentary and legal contexts, ‘Intervals’ offers a nuanced account of a death under the current UK system and evidences the need for any change to the assisted dying law to be considered in the wider context of improving health and social care. The writing of the book was supported by the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize 2022 and it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2024.