Dawn, the protagonist of The Book of Two Ways, is a death doula and former Egyptologist. Since the death of her dog when she was a child, Dawn has been interested in death, and her work reflects a continuing exploration of the topic. Picoult addresses death from a variety of angles. She uses Dawn’s personal and professional experience to probe societal attitudes about dying, and to explore what it means to have a good death.

After her mother’s death, Dawn realized that “death is scary and confusing and painful, and facing it alone shouldn’t be the norm” (50). This attitude led to her work as a death doula. Dawn notices how people react when they learn her profession: “Tell someone you work with the dying, and you are suddenly a saint” (202). In contrast, her own attitude toward her profession is much more down-to-earth: “Just because I get close to something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable doesn’t mean I’m special. It just means I am willing to get close to the things that make people uncomfortable” (202).

Picoult uses Dawn’s clear and pragmatic attitude toward death to highlight, by contrast, society’s attitudes toward it.