Katie Roiphe's Consumption with Death in THE VIOLET HOUR Doesn't Deserve Your Time

I found Katie Roiphe's obsession with confronting death through the lives of 6 famous writers self-indulgent and regrettable.  The 6 people whose lives she dissected under a fractured microscope are:  Sigmund Freud, Dylan Thomas, Susan Sontag, Maurice Sendak, John Updike and James Salter.  Other than Salter, Roiphe (b. Amer 1968) relies on 2nd hand information and doles out tertiary dolts of mundane philosophy.  Her infatuation with death stemmed from her near fatal illness at the age of 12 when she spent a year in & out of the hospital.  There is a disingenuous attempt at drawing parrallels amongst her subjects in regards to their embracing both life & death.  Her summations & insipid observations seem written prior to writing THE VIOLET HOUR.  It reads as a posthumous piece that does not dignify her subjects or provide substantive material to contemplate mortality.  The only person she interviewed was James Salter.  This interview is the most compelling section in the book.  Salter passed last yera at 90.  Roiphe was rewarded with an interesting, intelligent interview.  With regards to death, Salter tells her "Let's not talk too much about this...Don't dwell on it."  Roiphe tells her readers  "Maybe I need to find a way to be less afraid {of death.}"  Take Thomas' poem  "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" to heart and make better use of your time than reading minutia of how these famous people spent their waning days.