Sibylline Press is honored to publish Diane Leslie’s The Critic at Rest. Diane passed away shortly before publication, but not before completing the final revisions and knowing her novel was on its way into the world.
Her son, Dana Huffman, worked closely with her during the book’s final stages. We asked him to share the story of how they finished the book together.
My mom had been rewriting the book chapter by chapter—I think changing the whole thing from third to first person narration, huge task—when she was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s in mid-2020, still recovering from cancer treatment the previous year. As the disease progressed, it was like watching her body gradually freeze, and her ability to use her laptop and devices began to slow to a torturous crawl. Though she remained optimistic and determined, It was alarming to see how labored her work flow was becoming. At that time I was unhappily unable to offer assistance due to an onset of acute long term tendinitis in my hands that grounded my life’s purpose as an artist and musician. Since 2019 I’d been unable to paint, draw, play an instrument, drive a car, use a computer, or even button a shirt. Of course pandemic life was also obliterating normality, further impeding connection and collaboration.
“My mom and I shared an intent to see this book through to publication, ideally while she was still alive.”
On a family vacation in 2023 I finally understood, through the robust sense of denial I’d developed, that my mom’s condition was progressing with relative haste. She really had lost the ability to type (though she’d never stopped trying) or use text-to-speech, or even scroll from one page to the next. As an artist myself, the thought of my mom facing her demise with so much intensive work and creative identity left permanently unresolved hit me like a tragedy. As her son, I wanted to help her simply as a gesture of love that I knew would fill her heart and, I don’t know, perhaps even somehow ease her end-of-life experience. The condition in my hands had become a little more manageable, so we got to work.
All the chapters were complete but there were still plenty of decisions to be made. Over the next few months I read her each chapter and took notes about characters, ages, events, continuity, etc. My mom’s speech became harder and harder to understand, and her energy waned, but we worked for long stretches and I did my best to make any adjustments she expressed. I’d notice things, like a timeline discrepancy or choppy sentence, and we’d agree on the fix. By this past April, during the final revisions, my mom could only communicate yes or no, so I’d make an edit, read it to her, and get a yay or nay.
In some important ways this was the best kind of time I spent with my mom, occupied and focused, working diligently to complete such a meaningful creative endeavor. Perhaps this process and the conditions we worked through brought out my best attributes that I could give to my mom, and my dad, as a gift of gratitude. The experience came to feel like a family effort, really. My dad would cook dinner as my mom and I worked at the kitchen table (or nap next to her upstairs, depending on the time of day); my brother’s girlfriend took the headshot of my mom for the back cover; my wife’s sister was vital in the proofreading stage.
My mom and I shared an intent to see this book through to publication, ideally while she was still alive. Though the book is being published posthumously, I’m comforted that my mom passed peacefully a few hours after I told her “mom, we’re officially proofreading now!” We’d completed the final revisions, she’d seen the cover design, she knew the publishing date, and knew her work was finally resolved.
Dana Huffman
Read Diane Leslie's Obituary in The Los Angeles Times →
Learn more about The Critic at Rest by Diane Leslie →