Mortality

Summary of Mortality

1. 1

   When the Body Becomes a Battlefield

   

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   June 2010 began with what felt like being shackled to a corpse. Christopher Hitchens woke in a New York hotel room with his chest hollowed out and refilled with cement, his breathing audible but shallow, his heart erratic. This wasn't a hangover-though he'd certainly experienced legendary ones. This was something else entirely: a sudden deportation from the country of the well to the land of malady, a one-way journey across a border he hadn't known existed until that morning. Within hours, emergency physicians showed him shadowy negatives and directed him to an oncologist. The diagnosis: esophageal cancer, already spread to his lymph nodes. One tumor was large enough to see, "palpable" beneath the skin of his right clavicle-never good news. Yet that very evening, despite vomiting precisely twice before each appearance, he performed on The Daily Show and at the 92nd Street Y with Salman Rushdie. Nobody noticed. This desperate clinging to normalcy defines the newly sick, those still pretending citizenship in their former country even as they learn the language of their new one-a place of universal smiles, terrible cuisine, and feeble humor.

2. 2

   The Blind Alien Within

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   Hitchens called his tumor a "blind, emotionless alien," inadvertently personifying rogue cells that remained foreign despite being his own. Cancer needs a living host but can never become alive itself; its malice lies in dying with its host unless removed. "I'm not fighting cancer," he wrote. "It's fighting me." He wasn't a warrior in battle but the battlefield itself, his body the contested territory where cells waged their senseless war. Some religious believers interpreted his illness as divine retribution, particularly targeting his throat for blasphemy. But such thinking crumbles under scrutiny: which primate can know God's mind? Why not a thunderbolt instead of predictable cancer? Why do innocent children get leukemia while tyrants die peacefully? Terminal illness involves simultaneously preparing for death while pursuing survival-"living dyingly," as he called it. His days split between morning lawyers handling affairs and afternoon doctors discussing treatments. The most meaningful support came from Dr. Francis Collins, who despite his Christianity never suggested prayer but offered cutting-edge treatments and clinical trials. Their relationship proved how science and faith could coexist-Collins focused on practical medical solutions rather than theological conversion.

3. 3

   Tumortown and Its Peculiar Inhabitants

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   Four decades after Nixon's "War on Cancer," Hitchens found himself in "Tumortown"-a place where patients die not from disease but from endless encouragement. Well-meaning correspondents flooded him with suggestions: peach pit extract, alkaline diets, faith healing, miraculous doctors. The period was both exhilarating and melancholy. Exhilarating because his oncologist could design sophisticated chemotherapy cocktails showing promise. Melancholy because breakthrough treatments emerged too late. He experienced bitter hope learning about immunotherapy at the National Cancer Institute, only to discover his immune cells lacked the crucial molecule needed. The shocking novelty of diagnosis faded into banal routine. He grew grimly accustomed to death's presence, though its "snickering" quality-the way it toyed with hope-truly haunted him. At one book signing, a tactless woman expressed sympathy before launching into graphic detail about her cousin's liver cancer: how it vanished then returned "much worse," leading to an "agonizing" death. She concluded bizarrely: "Of course, he was a lifelong homosexual." Such cringe-worthy interactions became routine in Tumortown.

4. Chapter 4

   The Theft of Voice

   Most devastating was losing his voice, which began registering unpredictably before disappearing entirely. Having always defined himself through speech-hailing cabs, commanding debate halls, delivering television critiques, holding court at dinner parties-this loss felt like personality amputation. His voice had been his signature instrument, capable of withering criticism one moment and sparkling wit the next. When you can no longer enter conversations naturally, people listen "sympathetically," which he couldn't bear. His wife Carol later wrote about missing "his perfect voice-from morning's first happy trills to his soothing pianissimo chatterings at night." Richard Dawkins had called him "the greatest orator of our time"-praise that now felt cruel. Yet even as his physical voice failed, his literary voice remained strong. After his death, Carol found notes tucked everywhere-between pages, scribbled in margins, stuffed in drawers. When she read them, she could hear him again, that distinctive voice rising from the page.

   Chapter 5

   The Myth of Noble Suffering

   Nietzsche's maxim "whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger" struck Hitchens as increasingly dubious. The irony wasn't lost that Nietzsche himself contracted syphilis during his first sexual encounter, leading to migraines, progressive blindness, and mental collapse-reducing one of history's greatest minds to a shell. Hitchens' own experience provided brutal evidence against suffering's nobility. Thirty-five days of proton radiation left his torso covered in agonizing rash. Each swallow felt like "a mule kick in the small of my back." He lost nearly a third of his body mass. Staph pneumonia nearly killed him. Growing numbness threatened his ability to write. Only three factors sustained him: his wife Carol's refusal to tolerate defeatist talk, friends' unwavering support, and regular painkillers. Daily routine became an exercise in subtraction-each day representing more life relentlessly removed. Most devastating was "chemo-brain"-persistent mental fog dulling his legendary wit and intellectual acuity. As for bravery, he suggested we save that term for fights we can't run away from-and in this battle, retreat was impossible.

   Chapter 6

   Between Care and Cruelty

   The difference between a caregiver saying "you might feel just a little prick" with compassion versus faint taunt represents the entire power dynamic between patient and torturer. During voluntary waterboarding for Vanity Fair, Hitchens discovered it wasn't drowning "simulation" but actual slow drowning-torturers making minute adjustments when you try evading water. Routine treatments like nebulized breathing became traumatic-the mask, the forced inhalation, all triggering memories of controlled drowning. In one Catholic hospital, omnipresent crucifixes evolved from religious symbols into something more sinister, reminiscent of Inquisition practices. The medical profession must vigilantly patrol ethical boundaries with terminal patients, where extending life can blur into prolonging suffering. Hitchens had always prided himself on stoic materialism-"I don't have a body, I am a body"-yet regularly acted as if an exception would be made in his case, postponing medical attention while feeling unwell. This contradiction revealed how deeply ingrained mortality denial can be, even in committed rationalists.

   Chapter 7

   Living Until the End

   Despite his grim prognosis, Hitchens maintained fierce intellectual engagement with "preternatural intensity." He responded to positive developments with childlike enthusiasm, organizing elaborate Thanksgiving celebrations and debating even during brutal chemotherapy. His magnetic personality transformed hospital rooms into literary salons-during one ICU stay, he requested works by Nietzsche, Mencken, and Chesterton. His Washington home remained a hub where he and Carol hosted marathon eight-hour dinners with ambassadors, dissidents, students, and children. With his voice unaffected, he delivered mesmerizing twenty-minute toasts weaving poetry, political manifestos, and wit, concluding with "How good it is to be us." Near the end, an asteroid was named in his honor-a volatile, star-like celestial body perfectly embodying his brilliant trajectory. His final writings, remarkably free of sentiment or self-pity, rank among his most powerful work. In facing mortality without flinching or comforting platitudes, Hitchens showed us how to maintain dignity and intellectual honesty until the very end-not as warriors fighting death, but as humans fully alive while dying.

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