O Brother

LoveReading Says

This is John Niven as you've never seen him before. I first became a fan of his acerbic wit when I read Kill Your Friends nearly a decade ago. He is sharp, razor sharp and funny, very funny. I howled my way through. This is his first foray into non-fiction and albeit the heartbreaking subject matter, it's a beautiful and important book and surprisingly hilarious.

It's August 2010 and Niven gets the call. The call he'd always half expected. The call about his little brother Gary. The brother that had never liked to play by the rules, the brother who always had anger simmering inside him, the brother of extremes. At age 42, after years of struggle, Gary had taken his own life.

Following the lives of the two brothers through the decades, their 70s childhood where Gary was a difficult child, he'd start a fight in an empty house. Through the gang-ridden, trouble-fuelled, pathless 80s, the constant fights with their father. The turbulent 90s, the death of their father, and his prison sentence for dealing drugs. The depths of the 00s, the debilitating health, the constant calls to borrow money and final bankruptcy.

It's brilliantly written, perfectly pitched, with every detail to support anyone going through a similar trauma. Each medically sound detail, from the Freedom of Information Act, from the Glasgow Coma Scale, the Cluster Headaches. Whilst in hospital, after being rushed to A&E after a frantic 999 call, Gary tried to hang himself just yards from the nurse's station. He was in a coma for three days until he died, at 4pm on 3 September 2010.

The fearless, popular, handsome lad had reached rock bottom, unable to run his life. And Niven is there every step of the way, trying to help, trying to support, but totally unaware of the seriousness of the situation. Totally unprepared for what was to come. 

"I do not know - sat there chop-sticking sashimi like an insufferable prick - that the instrument panel has red lights flashing across the board. Male. Single. Unemployed. Living alone. Early forties. Health problems. Financial problems. Substance abuse problems. I have not yet seen the Samaritans' Men on the Ropes campaign, which focuses on reaching those most likely to take their own lives, 'men over the age of 25, who are unemployed or in manual jobs and who have experienced difficult times such as financial worries or breakdowns in their relationships.' "

After he died, Niven sat down with his trusty Moleskine notebook, and recorded everything that had just happened: the angle of light from the window above the bed, the coiling pale blue lines of the monitors. The things his mother said to him as he died. For this is what it means to be a writer; existence, as Saul Bellow said, is the job. And this is his account of it all. Every feeling of guilt. Every memory. Every painful recollection. Their journey. Their devastating journey through the decades, trying to cope with the challenges of poor mental health and declining health. Trying to cope with their black sheep, their beautiful Gary. Trying to support someone who won't be supported. But now Niven's eyes are open. And this compelling account of their journey serves as a reminder to us all of the fragility of human life.

Deborah Maclaren

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