From W.H.Y.Y. and Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend.

Today, novelist Amy Bloom explains why she agreed to help her husband terminate his life

after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

He wanted to die while he was still himself.

He didn't qualify for medically assisted suicide in the U.S.

So they went to Zurich, Switzerland, where he was accepted by a nonprofit organization

dedicated to painless, peaceful, legal, accompanied suicide.

Her husband said to her, right about this.

She did in her new memoir, In Love.

Also, we talk with David Cypress, who's been a New Yorker cartoonist since 1998.

It was his dream come true, but it only came true after submitting cartoons to the magazine

for 25 years and getting nothing but rejections.

He has a new memoir called What's So Funny.

My guest, Amy Bloom, has written a new memoir that begins with going with her husband to Zurich

to end his life.

Why Zurich?

Because even the few states with right to life laws in the U.S. have such stringent requirements

he didn't qualify.

He decided, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his mid-60s, that he wanted to end his life

while he was still himself.

Although by the time he actually did it, his Alzheimer's had progressed to the point where

he'd lost a lot of memory and cognition.

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