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Ireland, Memoirs, Prose: non-fiction, Coping with death & bereavement
An intimate, lyrical memoir exploring the ancient rite of the Irish wake, and the Irish way of overcoming our fear of death - BEING MORTAL meets THE LAST ACT OF LOVE
Death is a whisper in the Anglo-Saxon world. But on a remote island, off the coast of County Mayo, it has a louder voice. The local radio station runs a thrice-daily roll-call of the recently departed. The islanders keep vigil with the corpse and share in the sorrow of the bereaved. The living and the dead are bound together in the oldest rite of humanity. In My Father's Wake, Kevin Toolis gives an intimate, eye-witness account of the death and wake of his father, celebrating the spiritual depth of the Irish Wake and asking if we too can find a better way to deal with our mortality, by living and loving in the acceptance of death.
Praise for My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love and Die
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A broadside against collective [death] denial. In its alternating shifts of focus, from the intimately personal to the more journalistically detached, it lays bare the desperate numbness that accompanies that denial - OBSERVER
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Powerful and immensely moving
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- THE SUNDAY TIMES
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Toolis writes superbly...it's as a memoir that this engrossing book works best - MAIL ON SUNDAY
Kevin Toolis
Kevin Toolis is a writer and film-maker. He is the author of an acclaimed chronicle of Ireland's Troubles, REBEL HEARTS and the memoir MY FATHER'S WAKE. He has written for the NEW YORK TIMES Magazine and the GUARDIAN and reported on conflicts across the world. As a film-maker Toolis has won a BAFTA for Best Single Drama and was nominated for an Emmy for his documentaries on the Middle East. His family have lived in the same oceanside village on an island off the coast of County Mayo for the last 200 years.
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