This Is Not the End of Me

Layton Reid was a globe-trotting, risk-taking, sunshine-addicted bachelor then came a melanoma diagnosis. Cancer startled him out of his arrested development. He returned home to Halifax to work as a wedding photographer and remission launched him into a new, passionate life as a husband and father-to-be. When the melanoma returned, now at Stage IV, Layton and his family put all their stock into a punishing alternative therapy, hoping for a cure. This Is Not the End of Me recounts Layton's three-year journey as he tried desperately to stay alive for his young son, Finn, and then found purpose in preparing Finn for a world without him.

With incredible intimacy, gritand empathy, reporter Dakshana Bascaramurty casts an unsentimental eye on who her good friend was: his effervescence, his twisted wit, his anger, his vulnerability. Interweaving Layton's own reflections his diaries written for Finn, his letters to his wife, Candace,and his public journal she paints a keenly observed portrait of Layton's remarkable evolution.

Powerful and unvarnished, This is Not the End of Me is about someone who didn't get a very happy ending, but learned to squeeze as much life as possible from his final days. (From McClelland & Stewart)

Dakshana Bascaramurtyis a reporter for the Globe and Mail. Her work has also appeared in theNational Post, theOttawa Citizenand on CBC.This Is Not the End of Meis her first book.

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Sickboy1:02:22This Is Not the End of Me: Lessons on Living from a Dying Man

This week is a heartfelt blast from the past. We spend our time chatting with Dakshana Bascaramurty, journalist and author of This Is Not the End of Me: Lessons on Living from a Dying Man - a book all about the life and death of our dear friend and OG Sickboy alum Layton Reid. The gang reminisces on his final years as he prepared his family & himself for his death from cancer. This is a special one.