Before it overcame him in 2018, writer and journalist Pat Long attacked his brain tumour with a forensic almost professional curiosity. Our Head of Stakeholder Relations, Hugh Adams, met Pat when he visited our Centre of Excellence at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Pat wanted to meet and talk with Professor Silvia Marino, whose life’s work has been researching the tumour type that was slowly, and then terrifyingly quickly, taking Pat away from his wife and soul mate Kat Lister.
Last year Kat published her extraordinary book, The Elements – A Widowhood, and today sees the paperback release of this story of love, pain, hope, and, ultimately, transformation.
Before the book’s initial release, Hugh spoke with Kat who said: “Speaking about the viscerality of grief shouldn’t feel like a radical act just because I am younger than most. Although my story is an unconventional narrative, its function here is to say something universal about loss, love, identity and evolution. Themes every reader, regardless of experience, can relate to.”
Hugh said: “This book glides between academic research to the guttural howls of bereavement visiting both the exotic and the mundane and as such is like no other, I have read. This is not a book about brain tumours, it is a book about premature loss, about widowhood, and about “making peace with the here and now” – themes that will resonate with so many of our community.”
To find out more, to read the beautiful reviews and comments, and to purchase your copy, visit: https://iconbooks.com/ib-title/the-elements-3/