This Far and No More

When does prolonging life by means of technology mean prolonging death? Malcolm, Chicago bureau chief for the New York Times, confronts the right-to-die issue in this anguished account of the three-year-long financial and emotional destruction of a family and the battle waged against ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) by wife and mother Emily Bauer (a pseudonym), in her early 40s and a practicing psychotherapist. Her diary, kept until a self-willed death, and interviews with family members, friends and medical staff reveal that the formally independent, headstrong woman, rendered physically helpless, incapable of speech and progressively dependent on others, remained determined to control her own destiny. An eloquent plea to restore dying as a humane and natural process. TV rights to NBC. (April 24)