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Kirkus Review
Admiring and uncritical, this undistinguished authorized biography traces the life of Elisabeth KÜbler-Ross from her delivery room appearance as the first of unexpected triplets (""This one will be a pathfinder,"" says the attending physician) to 1969 when a Life story brought her prominence and On Death and Dying extended her influence. Growing up in a bourgeois Swiss family, Elisabeth had lots of energy for her early humanitarian goals--working for IVS during WW II, taking on the back ward in a NYC mental hospital--and the strength of character to resist authority and established ways. Estranged from her father, she put herself through medical school. Unlike orthodox psychiatrists, she found distance from patients a barrier to treatment; instead she based her work on closeness and concern. And fighting a reputation as ""hospital vulture,"" she talked with dying patients, found patterns in their responses, and developed seminars to help those involved with them improve communications. Gill concentrates on Elisabeth's personal experiences; and although he doesn't get lost in the trivia of pet monkeys and beloved kindergarten teachers, he does seem to cherish each detail, to prefer selective reportage to analysis, and to lose some perspective in a mist of appreciation. But such shortcomings are minor compared to the decision to end this book just as KÜbler-Ross begins to make her unique contribution. By so doing, Gill superficially represents the character of that contribution--the struggle to expose a harmful social attitude--but fails to address the controversies that continue to surround her work or to acknowledge ongoing efforts by others. So read this slightly sanitized biography for the bare-bones facts, without the full story of her on-again/off-again acceptance by the mental health community or the skepticism toward her current mystical preoccupations. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.