Tell Me Good Things: On Love, Death, and Marriage

by James Runcie

Overview

A profound examination of grief and a great celebration of love by internationally bestselling author James Runcie.

In early 2020, as the world sunk into the pandemic, James Runcie and his wife Marilyn Imrie were going through a different, far more personal tragedy. After 35 years of miraculously happy marriage, they learned that the painful, frustrating symptoms Marilyn had been experiencing for two years were a sign of Lou Gehrig's Disease. With this diagnosis, during the isolation and strangeness of the pandemic, James and Marilyn's lives were transformed.

Now, in his startling and intimate memoir, James tells the story of Marilyn's illness and death–-in all its moments of tragedy, rage, and strangeness-–while painting a vivid portrait of her life, in all its color, humor, and brightness. Tender, funny, and deeply true, Tell Me Good Things is an unforgettable story of life before death and love after grief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639731527
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	02/21/2023
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,037,044
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

James Runcie is an award-winning film-maker, playwright and literary curator. He is the author of twelve novels, including the seven books in the Grantchester Mysteries series and The Great Passion. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Scotland and London.

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/05/2022

A widower turns grief into a profound appreciation of his wife’s legacy in this poignant elegy. British novelist and playwright Runcie (The Grantchester Mysteries) recounts the 2020 death of his wife, Marilyn Imrie—an audio-theater director for the BBC—of motor neurone disease, an incurable ailment that causes creeping, fatal paralysis. Runcie offers a clear-eyed account of her agonizing decline alongside intimate glimpses of his nearly unhinged grief at her death, but also passionately remembers Imrie’s life: her generosity, ebullience, and occasional prickliness; her colorful outfits; her wit (“Henry James ‘always chewed more than he bit off,’ ” she quipped); and her influence on his writing as a coach and editor. Runcie entwines beguiling digressions on everything from Victorian mourning customs to the philosophy of soccer fandom among his evocative vignettes of their life together: “There we were, eating pizza and using Chekhov to talk about the comedy and pathos of everyday life, the desire of the characters to be more than they were, the disappointments of those who felt that life had passed them by, and how to make the future a realistic possibility rather than a dream.” The result is that rare thing, a moving exploration of a great marriage and its ability to nourish the mind and heart. Photos. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

A tender memoir of the challenges of bereavement... I closed this book wishing I'd met her – but feeling that I almost had.” —Daily Telegraph

“A widower turns grief into a profound appreciation of his wife's legacy in this poignant elegy … Runcie entwines beguiling digressions on everything from Victorian mourning customs to the philosophy of soccer fandom among his evocative vignettes of their life together … The result is that rare thing, a moving exploration of a great marriage and its ability to nourish the mind and heart.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Runcie generously fulfils the promise of his title… because his memoir is full of good things: stories that reveal Imrie's sharp intelligence, her bold fashion sense, her glee at pricking the bubble of pretension… Runcie is also touchingly honest… Tender memoir.” —The Times (London)

“A deeply emotional memoir … and a moving meditation on grief … Sorrow imbues a tender, intimate memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[Tell Me Good Things] is not primarily a memoir of illness - of an unwinnable battle to stay alive - but a love letter to the most important person in [Runcie's] life.” —Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

“Vivid, bleak and wonderful… Where Runcie is excellent is in laying bare his own grief, its narcissism and the 'bizarre freedom' is gives him not to care anymore… As an instructive examination of how to find hope in the thralls of despair, Tell Me Good Things is a wonderful addition to the literature of bereavement.” —The Sunday Times (London)

“Wise, refreshing ... A touching human story.” —Hilary Mantel on THE GREAT PASSION

“Runcie has the gift of the born storyteller” —Daily Mail

“Variations on themes of love, loss, and grief run throughout the novel... Runcie beautifully renders each character's humanity and convincingly portrays a creative environment.” —Booklist on THE GREAT PASSION

From the Publisher

2022-11-29
A husband mourns his late wife.

British novelist, TV producer, and playwright Runcie, whose books include the Grantchester Mysteries series, pays homage to his wife, Scottish producer and director Marilyn Imrie (1947-2020), who died of motor neuron disease, with a deeply emotional memoir of their 35-year marriage and a moving meditation on grief. Imrie was a warm, vibrant woman, as devoted to her husband and daughters as she was to her thriving career. Their life was filled with “Hospitality, Elegance, Literature and Friendship.” The diagnosis, which came after protracted waiting and visits to specialists, was devastating. The disease, Runcie explains, “is the degeneration and death of the specialised nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord (motor neurones) which transmit the electrical signals to muscles for the generation of movement. It is a form of slow and inexorable paralysis.” The progression of symptoms is unpredictable, but the prognosis is inevitable. The Covid-19 pandemic added to their problems: Renovating their flat to adapt to Imrie’s care proved difficult when a lockdown limited access for builders, carpenters, and electricians. Runcie recounts his mounting frustration as he watched her become weaker and weaker, losing the ability to walk, speak, and swallow. “She hated everything that was happening to her,” he writes. “I couldn’t foist my opinions and expectations upon her or help her to come to terms with what was happening.” He hated what was happening, too: “I could not stand it.” Overwhelmed with loss after her death and angry at facile remarks that some people offered as consolation, Runcie took to writing as a way to keep her close: “I thought of what it might be like not to be haunted, but to be accompanied. To have a happy ghost as it were, a blessed ghost, someone who was there and not there.” They had worked together on so many projects that, he says, “it was almost as if we were writing it together.”

Sorrow imbues a tender, intimate memoir.

Kirkus Reviews