"On the Side of the Living" by Violaine Bérot: a novel about cancer care

Greg experienced the horror of chemotherapy at the "big cancer center," which ended in "forty-eight hours of being on the verge of death." He decided he would never undergo another course of chemotherapy, even though he was told he had an 80% chance of recovery: he preferred to die. He gave himself six months, during which he would party, see all those he had loved, "they would laugh and drink." His best friend, Paul, would serve as his "nurse, driver, or nanny" for a salary. Greg had planned everything and written it down in a notebook.

For the time being (and for a day, the duration of the book's action), he is in a room at a smaller hospital where they are trying to fix him up. He is reinforced in his decision by an Argentinian doctor whom he heard swearing in Spanish "against the fucking bigwigs who think they are the assholes of the world " when he saw him in such disrepair. In this room, Greg has a roommate, Alphonse, an old man with a heart condition who calls him "my big man" . Marie, a nurse who wants to be "tough" , Didou, a nursing assistant who recently lost her partner, and a strange young girl who exchanges grimaces with Alphonse and moves around by slipping on her socks, regularly pass by.