A novelist compelled to undergo an operation from which he will probably never recover is the hero of this book. Here are the memories, hopes, desires, dreams, philosophical reflections and experiences of a man face to face with death. But there is nothing depressing about this study and, as Gerald Gould writes in the Observer: 'Indeed, just because the hero is so pleasant, so quiet, so sensible, so courageous, and the circumstances in which he finds himself are so usual, to me the story of his spiritual enlightenment and physical fate are fare more exciting than any detective story. And one is not only excited, one is inspired and fortified.'