One of the most gratifying things about getting Imperfect Endings published has been the opportunity to join the national discussion on assisted suicide and the right-to-die movement. I had the great good fortune of spending an hour on WBUR’s On Point program last month and of talking to various journalists. (Monica Hesse of The Washington Post was especially fun as D.C. is my hometown.) So it is no surprise that the HBO special on Dr. Kevorkian “You Don’t Know Jack” caught my attention. And while it may not be everyone’s idea of a fun Saturday night, I have invited my cousin and her partner over for Thai food and Kevorkian-watching tonight and am looking forward to seeing Pacino chew the scenery as the prickly, self-aggrandizing “Dr. Death.” (Hope to post more on it tomorrow.) I had the opportunity to talk to another one of the giants in the right-to-die movement recently – Derek Humphry, author of Final Exit, the best-selling how-to guide on suicide. I made contact with Humphry after he posted a link to my book on his blog. (I was also happy to discover he had posted a review on my Amazon page.) I found Humphry to be delightful, funny and charming, with quite a lot to say about Dr. Kevorkian. It seems that, many years ago, Dr. Kevorkian was hoping Humphry would send “clients” his way when Kevorkian was considering setting up a death clinic – something Humphry disapproved of. “He stood up and stormed out of my office and never talked to me again,” Humphry told me. (As anyone who has read about Kevorkian, the man does not fall very high on the emotional intelligence scale.) So, stay tuned for more on this topic and perhaps a follow-up interview with Humphry on how he thinks Al Pacino captured Kevorkian.