Skip to main content

Katy Butler

Biography

Katy Butler

Katy Butler’s articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Science Writing, The Best American Essays, and The Best Buddhist Writing. Her piece for the New York Times Magazine, “What Broke My Father’s Heart,” won the Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. She lives in Northern California.

Katy Butler

Books by Katy Butler

Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death
by Katy Butler - Health, Medicine, Nonfiction

In this visionary memoir, based on a groundbreaking New York Times Magazine story, journalist Katy Butler ponders her parents’ desires for “Good Deaths” and the forces within medicine that stood in the way. She explores what happens when our terror of death collides with the technological imperatives of medicine. Her provocative thesis is that modern medicine, in its pursuit of maximum longevity, often creates more suffering than it prevents.