First published 2024
Sebastian Junger confronts his own mortality after a life-threatening medical crisis strikes without warning. The bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm had faced danger countless times as a war correspondent, yet his closest brush with death came during a quiet summer afternoon in 2020 at home with his family. Severe abdominal pain sent him to the hospital, where he began dying from a ruptured aneurysm. In his final moments of consciousness, his deceased father appeared and offered comfort, telling him not to be afraid. Junger survived against the odds, but the experience shattered his atheistic worldview. Raised by a physicist father to trust only empirical evidence, he now grapples with phenomena that science cannot easily explain. The book weaves together medical drama with personal memoir as Junger investigates what happens when we die. He examines how ordinary people process the reality that death can arrive on any typical day, explores the emotional and spiritual impact of confronting ultimate questions, and attempts a rational inquiry into mysteries that may remain forever unknowable.
Genres: medical, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-transformation, spiritual-awakening
Period: 2020
176 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: death, medical-trauma