A deeply personal account of life after grief will resonate, unforgettably, with anyone who has lost a loved one. Coles' faith is, unsurprisingly for a vicar, central to his life and his understanding of the world. I found his attitude self-aware and unpushy - the best possible way to outline one's religion. Interestingly, however, the passages from the bible or other Christian tracts which moved him so deeply did nothing for me. I found Coles' own writing about his husband beautiful, and the poems he drew on affecting, but reading this book made me reflect on how cold religion leaves me. Coles lost many friends during the HIV epidemic, including the gay activist Mark Ashton, who was portrayed in the 2014 film Pride. “Half the people you knew died,” he says. “They’d be dead in a week. It was just so traumatic. We were so young. I really still miss some of the people. Mark Ashton – what would he have become? So many men were in their 20s and 30s. God knows what they would have been. I just wish they hadn’t died.”

Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, discussions about the afterlife, or being called out to perform the last rites, death is part of the Reverend Richard Coles's life and work. But when his partner the Reverend David Coles died, much about death took Coles by surprise. Conor bought me this for Christmas. Not your usual festive gift but the book is written at Christmas time so I’ll give him his dues. It was through the church that Coles met his partner, after giving a sermon. David, who was 15 years his junior, approached him after a service and said there were some spiritual questions he would like to talk over. I lied about having HIV,” he says. “It was such a stupid thing to have done. I was lying in a grave in my mind [waiting for the results] and because I had a fight with Jimmy I blurted out that I was HIV positive – I think just to shut him up, actually. Then I kind of went with it. I had to do the rounds and tell people that I wasn’t [HIV positive], which was humiliating. Especially because there were people who were not making it up.”

In this memoir, Coles shares his truth, stays kind, and, when possible, brings a smile . . . By reflecting the hurts of others' losses with such beauty and integrity, he confirms that it is his open humanity that is priestly. It gives me yet another reason to admire him— CHURCH TIMES You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. I loved the novel's strangeness, and only very rarely have I identified so closely with a novel's protagonist. A memorable, sympathetic character, 16 year old Jane remains strong against all the odds, helped along her difficult journey by her 'gift of finding people's goodness'.

FYI: I don't rate memoirs and biographies. I don't feel comfortable rating someone's life experiences and feelings - especially in this instance. Then there is the aching banality of what he calls the “sadmin”— the need to convey to the state, the authorities, everybody what to them is a necessary statistic but to the bereaved is a reminder of the intolerable, another cut in the wound that never completely heals.Dad eventually takes up with a classy lady, Mia-Mia, who moves in, mostly, cleans and cooks and takes care of the two of them in their tiny house next to the magic shop, displacing Aunty Ada, who had been doing that for them, and whose nose was now a bit out of joint about it. Many years ago, when experiencing a crisis that I then thought might never end, I read A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis. I’d still recommend it to anybody dealing with loss and its terror, but I’d give them Richard Coles’ new book too. Not merely because he’s a friend, or someone I admire very much, but because I read his book through the night, unable to break the story. It’s a genuinely memorable and important volume which will help countless others. I only hope it can help Richard Coles as well, because this walk never really ends. It was like tectonic plates were crashing all around me”, he says, while eating a chocolate digestive. (“Dark of course, why anybody would take milk chocolate when dark is available is beyond me.”) The “unwelcome” attention was often part of media being its tabloid self. There were also floods of sympathy, concern, and love. Barbaric nastiness as well, with the usual homophobes and fundamentalists coming out of the inquisitorial woodwork to write in condemnation or, God knows how, expressing joy in David’s death. Coles wrote about some of this on social media, leading — not due to his request — to a police inquiry. Words, kind as well as callous, do have consequences. I am not going to tell you any of the secrets, because that would spoil the whole thing for you. But remember that it is a book about secrets and identity, and realness and fantasy, grief and recovery, and what masquerades as fantasy often is a disguise for despair.

A memoir of love and loss, The Madness of Grief is one clergyman's account of losing his partner of 12 years and coping withthe tragedy of bereavementafter his death. Well, the touring goes just fine until Mr. Magikoo kills his wife. OK, OK, it was an accident, having to do with electricity and lightning, but still. So he continues touring with his young daughter right up until the time he wanted her to walk between some swinging knives mechanism they dubbed the Sweeney Todd, until his sister, Jane's Aunty Ada, put a stop to THAT, you better believe it! For one thing, David's death at the early age of forty-three was unexpected. The man that so often assists others to examine life's moral questions now found himself in need of help. He began to look to others for guidance to steer him through his grief. Coles strikes me as effete, though perhaps that’s unfair when I’ve never seen or heard him in the flesh. He is surprisingly posh: his ancestors owned the boot factory that employed all the locals, and he spends his first Christmas as a widow with Charles Spencer (Princess Diana’s brother) and family. Even when writing about the gloomiest topics, he is witty: “It is hard to think of anything more English than standing in Waitrose in Eastbourne, the object of distanced sympathy, by people buying forced rhubarb and salsify.” He also has a good eye for a telling scene: the one that stands out to me is when, after David’s death, he goes to Hay-on-Wye and buys an expensive leather-bound copy of In Memoriam, only for one of the dachshunds to chew the cover off.I admit to a smidge of disappointment with the ending. I felt it was cliché and trite. In fact, it could have done just splendidly without the final section altogether. But what do I know? I'm just a simple illiterate peasant who likes to read and muse on the human condition. Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize. Guess which one I do. These people find themselves repeatedly faced with some life-changing and traumatic events, and the reader can't help but be pulled right into the tangled web of the narrative. (There are so many secrets!) Depression has been a constant companion for Coles. “I’ve never felt as desolate as I felt then,” he says. “But you look around the world sometimes and wonder why you wouldn’t be depressed. But there’s so much to not be depressed about too.”

Once out, however, things unravelled for him. “I had a mental crisis after I came out,” he says. “I think, for some time, I hadn’t been open about my sexuality and when I was, there was a release of inner tension, and that became a crisis.” Is it his biggest regret? “It was not my finest hour,” he says, “and it was tough asking people for forgiveness for having done it, but they did, actually. Of course I regret it.”He lived with his partner David, who was also an ordained priest, until the latter’s death in December 2019. This book covers that short period of time between when it became obvious David was dying to his funeral in January 2020, with brief allusions to the following months.