June 2, 2002, is an ordinary day for a handful of strangers driving through the desert when a tortoise crosses the road, resulting in a horrific automobile collision that will connect the lives of these strangers forever.
Flash forward a few years, and Blake Morgan, a reporter who covered the collision, is assigned to provide an update on the survivors for a human interest story in his newspaper. He discovers that things have gotten worse for the survivors: one has terminal cancer, another ALS, and a young woman who had been rendered quadriplegic has fallen into a deep depression. All of them have lost their will to live and seek a permanent end to their suffering. Staggering medical costs, anxious heirs, government, and religion all tug at their choices. And should it even be their exclusive choice to make?
A Tortoise in the Road is a bold and thought-provoking work that artfully explores the emotional, legal, and moral controversy that surrounds assisted suicide today.