Terry Gross

So give us a couple of the examples, and why do you think that you're interested in the ghoulish and the extreme of the body?

Sick in what way?

Physically sick or like mentally?

When something extreme is happening to your own body or something tending toward the ghoulish, do you find that fascinating too or just horrifying?

But if you take him too much to heart and obsess about death every day instead of like thinking about it and thinking about it as a kind of natural part of life, that's not great.

Where on the scale were you?

Because it sounds like you've been pretty somewhere between thoughtful and obsessed with death for a good deal of your life.

My guest is Julian Barnes.

His new book is called Departures.

We'll be back after a short break.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm Terry Gross.

Just a heads up here.

In the next part of our conversation, we briefly discuss suicide.

If you're having thoughts of harming yourself or having a mental health crisis, help is available by calling or texting 988.

That's the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Again, the number to call or text is 988.

You finished writing a book in 2012 about your wife's death.

She died 37 days after being diagnosed with a very aggressive brain tumor.