Johnny's vision was impaired to varying degrees because of papilledema (pressure on the nerves to the eyes) caused by the tumor.

Johnny began to be tutored in this period in an attempt to make up for lost classwork, with the hope of graduating with his class at Deerfield Academy the following spring.

Dr. Lester Mount reporting that "he had successfully drained an abscess that went five centimeters into the brain beyond the table of the skull, and had got out a full cup of pus and fluid."

Dr. Mount reported that "the mass was even invading his scalp and that, despite the depth he had reached, 11 cm., he had never penetrated to the healthy brain tissue at all."

Gunther wrote the book in the months after his son's death, originally with the idea of printing some copies to distribute privately, as some parents had done in remembrance of soldiers who were killed in action.

[1] Soon after the book's release, Dorothy Thompson wrote But had [Johnny] lived to be 90 and had his achievements filled encyclopedias, he could have made no greater achievement than this, transmitted by his father: To show us what, on its highest levels of courage, serenity, truth and beauty, a human life can be; to show us that as we live we die, and life and death are one.

[2] Katharine Graham, writing for the Washington Post, wrote "Without doubt, the outstanding work of the week is John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud, in the Ladies Home Journal.

"[3] A reviewer in the Washington Post wrote that "It is this memory [of Johnny] which John Gunther has attempted to preserve in a memoir heart-breaking in its quiet simplicity and restraint.

[6] The story was made into a television movie in 1975, starring Robby Benson as Johnny Gunther, and Arthur Hill as his father.