While I consider myself to be primarily a fiction reader that’s not exclusive at all. I was thoroughly engaged with this memoir from Ed O’Loughlin. When I first began it, I found that it was written in the third person so it read almost like a novel. I was curious but the author explained his reasons for using the third person narrative rather than the first later in the book. And I get it.
The catalyst for the book seems to be the death of somebody just before lockdown whom the author had known in his younger past . He attended her funeral and the title is alluding to the fact that attendees at lockdown funerals were limited.
Ostensibly appearing to mourn Charlotte, the lady who passed away, the event prompted him to reappraise his whole life. And as he examines events both personal and professional he is looking for meaning and explanations. It’s a moving memoir. We hear about the tragic suicide of his brother aged just 30. His life as a journalist in war zones. His role as husband and father. it’s all written with a refreshing honesty and some subtle wit. A moving realisation of how one ages and how it can creep up on you when you least expect it. That awful moment when you suddenly have to face the fact that you are old and cannot be or do who or what you used to.
I found it a very readable volume. Some memoirs can be self aggrandising and self absorbed, this isn’t. There’s almost an unspoken apology for things not done. It’s quite refreshing in this day and age. And you realise that in mourning Charlotte he’s also mourning himself, or the loss of himself as he was. And so perhaps the title takes on a deeper significance.
Thanks to Ana McLaughlin at riverrun for a gifted proof.
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