Nana wandered over to the bookshelf, looking for something to borrow. "I don't know" she said doubtfully "they all look a bit dark". I scanned the shelves, looking for something she might like. Murder, apocalypse, suicide, death, abuse, genocide, alcoholism, unrequited love, loss; a catalogue of violence, vice and human suffering. I have a fine collection of books of which I am very proud, but I had honestly never realised that it was so fucking grim. Searching in vain for something that wouldn't further depress an elderly and grieving widow, I lit upon the one I read myself when I need a little soul - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. And then remembered that Bauby wrote it after he'd suffered a massive stroke and then died very shortly after it was published. So maybe not.
She left with Roddy Doyle's The Deportees in the end, a harmless little book of funny vignettes about, em, racism.
She left with Roddy Doyle's The Deportees in the end, a harmless little book of funny vignettes about, em, racism.
