In his twentieth book most of which was first composed on the backs of medical forms while on break as a thirdshift medical technician Sean Thomas Dougherty brings us a memoirlike prose sequence reflecting on disability chronic illness addiction survival love and parenthood.ampamp160In Death Prefers the Minor Keys Dougherty offers the reader collaged prose poems stories and essays full of dreams metaphors aphorisms parables and narratives of his work as a caregiver. Moving portraits of Doughertys residents a series of letters to Death invocations of Jewish ancestry through the photography of Roman Vishniac imaginary treatments for brain injuries and half translated short stories of lives both real and imagined populate this collection. Through these Dougherty engages issues of labor the ontology of disability and the mysticism of life.ampamp160Death Prefers the Minor Keys is most of all a kind of love letter to Doughertyampamp8217s wife and her courage and complicity in the face of longterm illness and addiction.