A moving literary novel about friendship, family, and the final journey we must all face.
When distinguished attorney John Eastman learns he has terminal cancer, he makes a decision that will alter the lives of everyone who loves him. Rather than subject himself and his family to the slow erosion of his remaining days, he chooses to leave on his own terms. Keeping his diagnosis secret-especially from his eldest daughter, Kate, who would fight for every possible treatment-John reaches out to the one person he trusts most: his oldest friend, Peter Grove, and asks him to join him on one final journey.
Despite his own failing health, Peter flies to New Mexico to accompany John on a road trip unlike any other.
As they travel north from Santa Fe into the Colorado mountains toward a place steeped in shared history, their conversations unfold with quiet restraint, shaped as much by what remains unsaid as by what is spoken. Set against the vast beauty of the American West, the journey becomes a reckoning with memory, regret, and the enduring weight of friendship.
Meanwhile, Kate begins to piece together her father's plan and turns to Peter's son, Scott, for help. Together, they launch into a desperate twenty-four-hour pursuit across state lines, racing against time to stop two aging men from disappearing into the mountains forever. But as the miles slip away, Scott begins to fear his father may be on this journey for reasons far more personal than loyalty alone.
At once intimate and sweeping, Do Not Go Gentle is a profound meditation on mortality, choice, forgiveness, and the ties that bind us even as life asks us to let go.
Tender, propulsive, and deeply human, this is a novel that will stay with readers long after the final page.
About the Author :
Allen Shay is a former technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and debut novelist. A graduate of Davidson College with a degree in English, he spent more than four decades in leadership roles across the global technology industry, working primarily with Fortune 500 companies. In recent years, he has devoted himself to the nonprofit initiative he founded, helping refurbish unused consumer laptops and place them with students and families in need. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife, Robin, and their dog, Mr. Darcy. Do Not Go Gentle is his debut novel.
