Millard was a fascinating character and the exploration of the last day of his life was a completely fascinating one. It was an excellent lesson in the inability to leave this life without regrets. I enjoyed seeing the world through Millard's eyes and being able to explore his fears and regrets.

Millard Salter's decides to end his life on his 75th birthday. This quirky novel examines Millard's life, as well as the details of his last days in a surprisingly uplifting manner. This book was certainly a creative, unusual spin on end of life perspective. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

I was looking forward to this book after seeing it compared to A Man Called Ove, but this book lacked the quirky and heartwarming tone that made Backman's book so memorable. The main character was hard to like, and therefore it was hard to really immerse myself into this story.

Thank you to Net Galley and Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Not getting 2021 started off with books that I am loving so far.
I honestly just could not get into this book, could not connect with the main character and found the story boring and slow moving. I thought about not finishing at several points, but I really don't like not finishing a book if I can help it. While I'm glad I finished the book, I found that the book ending very abruptly and overall was just a disappointing read for me.

Millard Salter is determined to end his life by the end of the day as he doesn't want to be an elderly person struggling to live and daily function. But during the course of the day, there are people he needs to say goodbye to and some affairs t put in order.

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me, I didn't connect with Millard at all from the start and I felt very uncomfortable that in the first page of the book, Millard is talking about what kind of belt would be best to hang himself with. While i understand this book is obviously heavily centred around suicide, the discussion of methodology so early on in the book wasn't great for me.

This is the heart warming story of a man who decides to end his life before he’s too old—but then begins to reconsider when he faces complications from the world around him.

Millard decides he will end his life on his 75th birthday whilst he is capable and not become a burden on other s, or at their mercy to make decisions for him. He has had a good life but is somewhat lonely ,even with people around him.

Millard is a psychaiartist and still works, running a department at the local hospital. His manages co workers and still sees patients. He is honest and has a balance with people aswell as good judgement.

His has a few loose ends to tie up, including meeting his Son for lunch, visiting his first Wife and the grave of his second Wife. There is also the ongoing and growing relationship with Deliah, a widow he is falling in love with. She herself is not in good health.


If you knew you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it? This novel is about how Millard spends his last day -- and what a day -- he packs more into this day than many of us pack into a month. He also revisits his entire life, in his mind, which, according to Millard, was a good life. It's a good last day and a good life because Millard Salter cares for others and lives in service to others. His concern for others doesn't oppress him in the least -- he's a giver.

What's funny is -- he almost dies a couple of times during the day -- and he doesn't want to die! Human instinct kicks in.

I really liked book.
While the subject appears to be grim, it is very funny. As in laugh out loud kind of funny. Millard is a character. He is set in his ways. Has a terrific way of looking at most things and people. Given his outlook, he takes things in stride and the people whom he encounters give way to some truly imaginative and humorous circumstances. All good things come to and end.

Jacob M. Appel delivers again in a remarkably comedic novel that addresses the underlying ethical issues of death by choice.

Millard Salter, a physician, has decided to end his life after the love of his life dies. The story is about his last day, and the trials and tribulations he endures with colleagues, some of whom are definitely certifiable, as are many of Appel’s characters, as he tries to tie up loose ends. While I was hoping Dr. Salter would change his mind, he is certainly someone who follows through on his decisions, uncomfortable as they might be for some people.

Readers of Appel’s vast collection of stories and novels will recognize some of the signature names that are Appel’s “tells” - which I think are his way of reminding us that “there for the grace of God go I,” that being truly alive is messy, and that we are all far more connected than we suspect.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Unfortunately I could not get into this book after a few chapters, so I put it down.

It did not catch my interest or have me invest in any of the characters.

Gallery Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Millard Salter's Last Day. Additionally, I won a copy of this book during a Goodreads Giveaway. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Despite being in fine health himself, Dr. Millard Salter decides to have one last day before ending his own life. As he spends the day tying up loose ends, will Millard have any revelations that might change his mind?

Millard has a strong voice and is a good main character, but the plot was too "this is your life" for me. His trip down memory lane means something to Millard, but was just not all that compelling for the reader, as it was basically Millard reminiscing about his past. There are only two places that the plot can go, either Millard goes through with his plan or not. I was not mesmerized or intrigued by the plot and I simply just read the book to have the question about Millard finally laid to rest. There was a surprise in the end, but it just was not enough to elevate this book for me. Millard Salter's Last Day showed promise, but fundamentally, the author never really gave Millard's reason for what he was doing in the first place. For these reasons, I would give Millard Salter's Last Day three stars.

A light-hearted and, at times, heart-warming story of suicide – is that possible? Weird, but it is. Psychiatrist, Millard Salter, goes against his professional grain and decides to kill himself by the end of the day – which also happens to be his 75th birthday. The reason is not due to illness or depression but simply to make things easier for himself and his family. He is aging and lonely, he misses loved ones, and is frustrated by today’s youth and his son’s lack of motivation, but he’s also a man not wanting to wear out his welcome. Millard is a complex and easily relatable character. Although Millard communicates his frustrations through grumpy observations and tense interactions with others, he also spends his day reminiscing about the good times and people in his life. He thinks fondly of his career, his contributions, (most of) his children, his marriages, and his newest love. He spends his day essentially taking care of those around him, wanting to put things in order and ensuring he leaves no loose ends. A bit of comic chaos ensues as small challenges get in his way, delaying his plans. I spent the second half of the book hoping he changes his mind but also hoping he gets the graceful exit he so hopes for. The side characters are pretty interesting and a good addition to the story. The lynx side story seemed pointless and out of place. Overall, I enjoyed the book and recommend it.

Millard Salter’s Last Day: a sad romanticism about life and ending it.

A few years back I read a collection of short stories by Jacob M Appel and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I get annoyed by short stories because they spit shine and pretty up a series of scenarios which end immediately after getting good, leaving me annoyed. So surprised enjoyment means job well done!

Given the opportunity to read a full novel by Appel, I took the shot and accepted an ARC copy... which sat on my digital shelf.. for a couple months..

When I finally picked up Millard Salter’s Last Day and began reading it, I was super happy! It is an unusual story about a 75 year old man who had a wonderful life, and wants to end it on his terms while he is still strong and and respected.

Unfortunately, this novel was very enjoyable but disjointed... Throughout Millard’s final day, he visits his work, finishes tying up loose ends, disparages his son over lunch, visits his ex-wife, and visits his burial plot next to another loved one . These normally mundane tasks are interesting to read because while Millard reminisces throughout, he also is tinged with ambiguous joy/fear of his upcoming private hanging. The book was very much ‘This was your life’ with only one section being heavy handed but absolutely critical to the story.

What bothered me about this book (and may be the root cause of me taking over a month to read it) was that there are several important events through the day which are glossed over. At first I thought ‘Hey, the guy is dying.. these matters are trivial’ but then I noticed his co-workers were also non-plussed.. Not one character treats these situations as actual people would, instead brushing them off with no effort. The lack of realistic emphasis on abnormal situations really dropped the spark..

—
Disclosure- based on an ARC copy provided by the Author/Publisher.

I looked forward to reading this book because it was billed as being perfect for fans of "A Man Called Ove". Instead of finding another endearing curmudgeon who finds purpose in life and becomes indispensable to those around him, I found a person determined to kill himself on his 75th birthday, who reminisced about his life lived in wealth and prosperity. The author gives us a glimpse of the hearts Millard has broken along the way and his aging girlfriend, who also plans to end her life after a long, brutal illness.

Unfortunately, I did not find the redeeming, heartwarming story I was expecting. I did not find the story uplifting.

I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was gripping from the beginning. Very interesting characters and well rounded. This was very thought provoking.

I wanted to read this book from a review of it that I had read comparing it to A Man Called Ove. I loved that book and what a great recommendation to read it is wha I thought and it was described as heartwarming. After reading this book I have to disagree with the comparison to A Man Called Ove and I didn’t find as heartwarming at I did A Man Called Ove.

The book begins on Millard Salter 75th birthday, and he wants for this birthday is to be his last one. At the end of the day he has decided to end his life. At 75 he has decided he has lived long enough and doesn’t want to become old and feeble. He isn’t sick or depressed, just ready to take matters into his own hands before he is no longer capable of doing it. He doesn’t want to be a burden to his children or to outlive his usefulness. He is the head of psychiatry at St. Dymphna’s Hospital. He is the one that often is helping people that want to end their life’s. But maybe because of his profession, he has a clearer understanding of what could happen to him in his near future.

There were parts of this book that I liked but not enough to rate it any higher than 3 stars. As I was reading it, I thought that book was all over the place. It was if the author is trying to help the reader of an understanding of Millard’s life history and with people,places, and memories. Maybe as an attempt to justify or explain his reasoning of ending his life on his 75th birthday.

But, surprisingly I did come to love Millard as a character; he isn’t without a great sense of humor and charm. And I liked his great love for his family and that he does have some regrets at the end of the day of his 75th Birthday.

This novel was a very pleasant surprise that made me laugh but also really made me think. The complexity and humanity written into the characters, especially Millard, was amazing. How would you want to spend your last day if you decided that it was your day to die? Besides the incredible thought-provoking themes in the novel, it is wildly entertaining and I was absolutely said to reach the end of this character's story.

Millard is an aging psychiatrist longing for the good old days. He's Jewish, funny, and misunderstood by many he works with and teaches, his past wive and his children. While he may usually be in the position to talk others out of suicide plans, now he's sad and lonely and his girlfriend is suffering from a terminal illness. He decides to join her in a suicide pact and goes about spending his last day preparing for this. Of course, things don't go as planned on his last day and the book takes you through all his adventures with co-workers, patients, and family members. It's funny, light, and entertaining although there is a serious undertone to the aging process. You may have to be over 50 and understand his "schtick" to enjoy the book as I did.

Thank you to Gallery Books for providing me with a copy of Jacob M. Appel's novel, Millard Salter's Last Day, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Psychiatrist Millard Salter has decided to kill himself. The love of his life has recently died after an illness and he fears the idea of growing old with the possibility of having a disease or needing assistance. He feels that he has lived enough life and plans to hang himself, while things are still good. With this plan in mind, he spends his last couple of days tying up loose ends. He tries to wrap things up at work and visits with his ex-wife and adult children. He soon learns that leaving might not be as easy as he had anticipated.

LIKE- It took me time to get into the pacing and rhythm of Millard Salter's Last Day, but as soon as I did (last third of the story,) I felt swept away. Appel has created a complicated protagonist in Salter and I felt the weight of his worries and sorrows. Through his characters, Appel makes a strong argument for the need to have assisted suicide and speaks to the trauma of watching a loved one battle through a terminal disease. Salter helps a loved on with assisted suicide, which is described in detail. 

Although Salter is a lauded psychiatrist, his fears and depression create a situation where he justifies ending his life.  I suppose the argument could be made that people should have the freedom to live their lives ( or end their lives) as they see fit, at any stage, but I felt the overriding theme of Millard Salter's Last Day is that Salter's life should not end. His judgement is clouded. The worst of it, is none of the other doctor's at the hospital where he works, even notice that something is wrong. They are too busy trying to get ahead in their careers and dealing with office politics. Salter's family doesn't notice either. It's a sad and unfortunate situation all around, a commentary on how isolated people can feel and how blind we can all be to the suffering of others.

DISLIKE- Millard Salter's Last Day is pitched as a book similar to Frederik Backman's novel, A Man Called Ove. They deal with similar themes; like Salter, Ove is hell-bent on killing himself and finds the leaving process to be more difficult than anticipated. However, that's where the similarities end. Backman's novel has humor and light to breakup the heavy theme. Ove undergoes a huge transformation, where as Salter stays the same. Salter's weak story arc, my primary issue with the story.

I had compassion for Salter, but I found him to be a difficult character to stay with for an entire novel. I couldn't read Millard Salter's Last Day, without reading several other books at the same time. As such, it took me over a month to read, when it should have taken a day or two. As I mentioned previously, it didn't grab me until the last third, the first two-thirds were sluggish.

RECOMMEND- Probably not. Millard Salter's Last Day is heavy. Salter is a solid character, but he  doesn't have a solid story.

3.5★

I was delighted to discover Jacob M Appel’s short stories and have another collection I’m looking forward to. This was a full-length novel, and I enjoyed Millard and his plans to finish his life on his 75th birthday. He has a lot to accomplish before the end of the day, including helping his latest lover with her premature demise first.

Delilah was a well-known actress and counted many famous people among her friends, but now she’s bed-ridden and gradually disintegrating. She’s read up on the topic, joined a group and managed to secure the necessaries to kill herself cleanly and peacefully while she’s still capable of doing so.

“The queen-sized bed in the adjoining room, where they’d first made love, had long been surrendered to boxes of adult diapers and cases of puréed baby food. A second childhood lacking the only solace of the original: hope.”

Millard is a psychiatrist whose usual position is to talk people down from virtual ledges, not encourage them to go through with such lethal plans, but in this case, he’s sad and lonely since the death of his second wife, and he understands Delilah's desire not to go on, particularly as the only thing she has to look forward to is a further decline.

I enjoy Appel’s style and turn of phrase.

“Her tone carried a distain heavier than words, as though she’d pinched soiled clothing between her thumb and forefinger and was searching for a hamper.”

He has his kids to consider, his first wife, his patients, and his staff at the hospital, but at 75, he’s feeling there’s nobody much left to talk to who remembers the things he remembers. We know Millard is 75 today, and he was 13 when the armistice was signed at Pamunjon, which means he was born in 1940. I am now 75 and was born in 1942.

He is frustrated because he keeps making references to things that today’s young people have never heard of. He talks about “Bringing Up Baby”, a 1938 movie featuring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. And he reminisces at length about Jimmy Durante.

The romantic comedies of my youth (and Millard’s) would have been Rock Hudson and Doris Day or Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood. Johnny Carson was “our” comedian. I've seen the other people, of course, but they are not the generation of entertainer I'm missing.

Millard mentions that nobody would have described Harry S Truman as a second-rate haberdasher; he says someone’s voice sounds like the patrician tones Eleanor Roosevelt might have used to call Franklin. He talks about a coat someone wore every day during the year Eisenhower left office. My generation would be more likely to speak of Kennedy or LBJ.

There are so many references like this in every chapter that I felt a bit beaten over the head with them. All right, all right! I get it! BUT, the real reason he has nobody to talk to is that these are all things that might have interested my parents (and his), who were young marrieds in 1940 and interested in politics and movies and entertainment at the time.

Almost without exception, all of Millard’s nostalgia is that of a man probably thirty years older than he is. My dad loved Dinah Shore, and probably liked Hedy Lamarr, Jane Russell, Lana Turner and Rosemary Clooney, too.

These are not the women that today’s men of 75 would be lusting after in their memories. Monroe and Bardot and Loren and Ann-Margret might be more likely.

I suspect there are aged care facilities where people are still playing music that was popular during WW2, thinking that all old people listen to that music, when they should probably be playing Elvis, Dylan, the Beatles, and the Eagles now. Millard speaks of missing Glen Miller.

If only the story had taken place say thirty years earlier so that these hundreds of probably well-researched little time bombs would have fit, I might have enjoyed it more. As it was, I kept bumping into what I felt were anachronisms.

I suspect that younger readers may not notice them (all old people are the same age to some), but then they may not have the same sympathy for Millard’s nostalgia and situation.

As I said before, I do enjoy Appel’s writing. He’s a doctor (among other things) and has a keen eye for hospital procedure. Senior staff clock off at the end of the day and leave the running of the place to over-worked, over-tired interns who can’t control the families and visitors who basically do what they want.

“Narcotics and tranquilizers, declared taboo at noon, flowed like mountain springs six hours later. Parents smuggled candy bars to their diabetic children; love-blind companions trafficked malt liquor and miniature schnapps bottles onto the detox unit.”

All in all, well-written and entertaining but disappointing for me because of the anachronisms. I loved the last chapter, though!

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books and the author for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. I’m looking forward to the next lot of short stories.

My opinion of this book is "meh". I did not find any of the characters to be very relatable or well established. As to comparing it to A Man Called Ove, it comes nowhere close to that book, in my humble opinion.

This book is not unreadable, but I certainly would not go out of my way to read it. I give it 2.5 stars.

There were so many feelings in this book! I couldn't help but fall in love with the main character. If you enjoyed "A Man Called Ove" I would definitely recommend this as well. It makes you think twice about the people you encounter and the way they may view themselves.