Following the death of his mother in the early 1970s, author Thomas McGonigle embarked on two journeys with his elderly father, one to Newfoundland and the other to Mexico City. In this poignant memoir, which he refers to as a "memory novel," McGonigle delves into his relationship with his father and the inevitable shift in the parent-child dynamic. A translation of Diptych Before Dying appeared in 2020 in the Bulgarian literary magazine Syvremennik (Contemporary). This is the first publication of the original English version.