Dying: A Memoir: Cory Taylor on melanoma and control

Cory Taylor was an Australian novelist. She had melanoma, and she wrote this book in her final weeks. Details of her illness come from the book itself, not a federal source.

Spoilers, said plainly. Taylor died on 5 July 2016, aged 61. Text Publishing lists the book at 160 pages, with an April 2017 edition.

It is not a treatment narrative. There is almost no chemotherapy in it, no scan-by-scan chronology, no fight. What it is instead is an argument, mostly with herself. Is a dying person allowed any say in how the ending goes? And what does it cost to be told they are not?

The tone surprises people. It is dry, plain and frequently funny. She is impatient with euphemism and with the expectation that she will be brave in a particular way. The book is short enough to read in a sitting and specific enough to stay with you longer than that.

The book moves in three broad movements rather than numbered parts.

The first is the present tense of dying. She writes about the state of her body and the loss of speech and movement. She writes about the daily indignities. And she has a drug in the house, obtained through a euthanasia organisation, that she has not taken. She writes about the strange comfort of possessing an option she may never use.

The second is retrospective. Her parents, her father's long working absences, her mother's decline and death in a nursing home, a childhood spent moving. She says plainly that watching her parents die badly formed her views on dying. She does not pretend the two subjects can be pulled apart.

The third is closest to essay. What she thinks about religion and does not believe. Why the medical setting she is in has no vocabulary for what she wants. What it is like to talk to friends who cannot bear the talk. What it is like to talk to a doctor who changes the subject. There is a short, much-quoted passage about being asked how she is and having no useful answer.

There are no chapters of practical guidance, no resources appendix, and no discussion of drugs or trials. She is not writing to inform.

One more thing about its shape. The book was written under a deadline no editor set, and you can feel it. Sentences are short. Paragraphs stop where a longer book would keep going. Nothing is developed further than it needs to be. The compression is part of what makes it readable at a point when many people cannot read.

It is the best short account in this genre of wanting control and not getting it. She does not present her position as obviously correct. She presents it as hers, and she takes the objections seriously.

It is unusually good on the failure of ordinary conversation. Most dying-related books describe grand set-piece talks. Taylor describes the smaller and more common failure. A friend cannot say the word. Someone politely changes the subject. She ends up managing everyone else's discomfort.

And it is good on how a decade of living with cancer is mostly not dramatic. Long stretches of ordinary life, punctuated by scans.

The largest caution is geographic. Taylor was writing in Australia, under Australian law and inside a national health system. She writes about pursuing a chosen death outside the law because there was no lawful route open to her. That has since changed there. Victoria's Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 set up a state process, with eligibility criteria and safeguards. The Victorian Department of Health notes that recent amendments take effect from April 2027. Other Australian states legislated separately.

In the United States, there is no federal assisted dying framework. Where such a route exists, it is set up by state law, with its own rules on who qualifies. In most states it does not exist at all. Nothing in this book describes what is or is not open to a US reader. This page does not offer a view on the ethics. If you have questions about your own options, raise them with your care team. You can also ask a clinician or lawyer licensed where you live.

Cost is the other absence. Taylor is not worried about bills, because in her system she largely did not have to be. A US reader with insurance problems on top of advanced cancer will find that whole side missing.

The clinical material is also thin and personal by design. It is not a source for how metastatic melanoma is treated now.

Finally, a note on how the book handles her family. Her account of her mother's nursing-home years is harsh. Her siblings appear mostly at a distance. It is one person's version of a shared history. It was written by the person with the least time to soften it.

Taylor wrote about her melanoma. NCI's melanoma summary lists these risk factors:

• Fair skin that freckles and burns easily
• Exposure to sunlight, including blistering sunburns
• A personal or family history of melanoma
• Having many moles
• Certain inherited gene changes

It also describes the ABCDE pattern of change to notice in a mole:

• Asymmetry
• Irregular border
• Colour variation
• Diameter larger than about 6mm
• Evolution over time

A mole that oozes, bleeds or is ulcerated also appears on the list. NCI describes advanced melanoma reaching distant organs such as the lungs, liver, brain and digestive tract. The book describes her disease as spreading.

On prevention, CDC describes steps to take when the UV index is 3 or higher. Seek shade during peak hours. Wear clothes that cover arms and legs, and a wide-brimmed hat. Wear wraparound sunglasses that block UVA and UVB. Use broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 15 or higher. CDC also says indoor tanning exposes users to intense UV rays, a known cause of cancer. It says a base tan is a sign of skin damage, not protection.

On finding melanoma early, the evidence is thinner than most people expect. USPSTF issued an I statement in 2023. It covers skin checks by a clinician in teens and adults who have no symptoms. It applies to teens and adults without symptoms or a personal or family history of skin cancer. An I statement means there is not enough evidence to weigh the benefits against the harms. The Task Force also flagged missing evidence across skin tones. That is not an argument against seeing a clinician about a changing mole. That is a question of diagnosis, not screening.

See melanoma symptoms and skin cancer prevention for the detail.

What Taylor wanted, stripped of the legal argument, was for her wishes to be known and followed. There is federal guidance on part of that.

MedlinePlus describes advance directives as legal documents that let you spell out your decisions about end-of-life care ahead of time. It names two main types. A living will covers treatments such as dialysis, breathing machines, resuscitation and tube feeding. A durable power of attorney for health care names a health care proxy. That person decides for you when you cannot. The aim is to tell your wishes to family, friends and health professionals. That helps avoid confusion later.

NCI describes palliative care as care meant to improve quality of life for people with a serious or life-threatening disease. It can be given with or without care aimed at a cure. A team of many kinds of specialists delivers it. It is open at any point from diagnosis to the end of life. NCI notes that in studies, adding it early to standard cancer care improved quality of life and mood. Taylor's book is, among other things, a record of what it feels like when no one raises that early.

Neither of those things is the same as the choice Taylor was arguing about. This page is not treating them as the same. But they are the parts of the argument that federal sources address. They are also the parts a reader can act on with their own team. See advance care planning and palliative care.

Taylor wanted a choice her own country did not offer her. She wrote the book in the weeks she had left to argue for it.

It suits a reader who wants directness and can do without comfort. It also suits someone thinking about control at the end of life who wants smart company, not a position paper.

It does not suit a reader looking for melanoma treatment facts. It does not suit a reader who needs hope held out. Nor does it suit a US reader hoping for a guide to their legal options. On that last point it will mislead if read as practical.

• Dying: A Memoir — edition record, ISBN 9781925355772 (Open Library)
• Dying — Text Publishing title page
• NCI — Melanoma Treatment (PDQ) Patient Version
• CDC — How to Prevent Skin Cancer
• USPSTF — Skin Cancer: Screening
• MedlinePlus — Advance Directives
• NCI — Palliative Care in Cancer
• Victorian Department of Health — Voluntary Assisted Dying

This page discusses Dying: A Memoir for education. It is not medical advice, and nothing here is a judgement of anyone's real medical care.