Wrongful Death: A medical tragedy

Sandra M Gilbert Norton, £15.95, pp 365 ISBN 0 393 03721 5

Elliot Gilbert, professor of English literature at the university of California, Davis, died on 11 February 1991 only hours after a radical prostatectomy for a large cancer. His death followed a series of medical mishaps ranging from a long and difficult resection of an adherent gland to mismanagement of a postoperative haemorrhage that was later deemed negligent. The circumstances were shrouded in evasions; communication with the family was bumblingly incompetent. Almost inevitably therefore, things ended in court. Wrongful Death is a final act of vengeance by his …