On Christmas Day, December 25, 2012, four scientists working at the Cold Spring Harbor Labs on Long Island announce a discovery that will change the course of humanity and pit science against theological beliefs that have existed since time began. The team of genetic scientists have located and defined a human gene that can accurately identify the length of a human life from their first day to when their last day will come about. Their 4 years of study of the gene offers no reasons for a person’s demise except that they can predict with absolute certainty when an individual tested will meet their death. The evidence rocks the foundations of religions worldwide and shakes the faith of humankind which has believed that only God has the power to control such decisions. Nations around the globe take up the debate over who defines not the start, but the end of a human life. The debate will linger for years. But the discovery also shakes the lives of four test volunteers that had agreed to be subjects and donated their DNA. For each of the 4 subjects find out that they are scheduled to die exactly one year from the date of the announcement, December 25, 2013 will be the day that they die. The four, total strangers to each other, seemingly in perfect health and all from completely separate walks of life and circumstances, know only that they share the same date of death. The wave of human emotions that accompanies their terrible news at first overwhelms them as they go from disbelief and denial to resignation and resolution. They each take a different course as they prepare themselves by looking back on their lives and numbering the days they have left. What happens to them and how the human spirit can change so suddenly becomes the focus as each person moves forward towards their final day of our most precious possession, life.

Ross Parsons has been working with HIV-positive children in Mutare since 2005. As a child psychotherapist, he was interested in exploring how a therapeutic group, meeting regularly, might offer a way of elaborating and meeting their needs. His account of these experiences is presented as a rare blend of anthropological and psychotherapeutic approaches to the study of children, and he is candid about the close, even intimate, relationships that resulted: I have crossed the classical ethnographic and psychoanalytic boundary of the cool observer. The therapist, while still awkwardly present, has also become an advocate in pursuit of the ethnographic. The period of his research coincided with one of deep crisis in Zimbabwes economy: employment opportunities were few, public health and education services were in decay, and the prospects were grim for those on the margins of society. In the course of my fieldwork I have attended too many funerals. In the absence of state support, the poor look variously to international NGOs, and to the church. Parsons offers telling insights into the crossroads of donated pharmaceuticals and Christian faith, and is constantly alert to the place of traditional spirituality and ties of kinship.

Simultaneously published in Toronto (Doubleday Canada, c2017).

Nobody remembers how the Causality War started; that’s sort of the point. We were time warriors, and we broke time. But I was the one who ended it: ended the fighting, tidied up the damage as much as I could. Then I came here, to the end of it all, and gave myself a mission: to never let it happen again.

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year A DEBUT COLLECTION OF FIERCE, FUNNY ESSAYS ABOUT GROWING UP THE DAUGHTER OF INDIAN IMMIGRANTS IN WESTERN CULTURE, ADDRESSING SEXISM, STEREOTYPES, AND THE UNIVERSAL MISERIES OF LIFE In One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi Koul deploys her razor-sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with Internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of color: where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision, or outright scorn; where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, leaving little room for a woman not solely focused on marriage and children to have a career (and a life) for herself. With a sharp eye and biting wit, incomparable rising star and cultural observer Scaachi Koul offers a hilarious, scathing, and honest look at modern life.