The Book That Made Me Cry

The Book That Made Me Cry

It is hard for a book to make me laugh out loud just as it is hard for a book to bring me to tears. To start where yesterday ended I have to mention again the novel One Day and here there will be a SPOILER ALERT! When I reached the line in the book ‘then Emma Mayhew dies and everything she thought or felt dies with her’ I burst into noisy sobs. I was literally shocked and felt a sudden hit of grief for the loss of this wonderful woman.  I have lost my partner and we all wish for more time, but even with all this in mind I think the writer is incredibly skilful. He elicits a pure grief reaction because of the instantaneous nature of her death with absolutely no warning but also because the novel has always been made up of two narrative voices and Emma’s narrative absence is total; from that point on we only hear Dex’s story and we miss her as much as he does. One Day is an incredibly romantic and beautiful book, probably more meaningful because I had my own Dexter; a friend I was really in love with. We are now just friends and it works that way, but my 18 year old self would never have imagined that day would come. Another reason I love it so much is that my own husband died just 7 years ago from a secondary infection when he was severely ill with primary progressive Multiple Sclerosis. His death was nowhere near as instantaneous as Emma’s in the novel, but that moment when he died cleaved a distinct before and after into my existence. Even if you are expecting it the moment of death is an epic shock and probably what I feared most about his illness. I was scared of the person I would be when he was gone. How would I survive? How would I cope? David Nicholl’s handled his character’s death just right in that her absence was haunting. What I felt most betrayed by was the complete loss of connection. The silence was almost a presence in the room. I had been betrayed by my romantic novels that had led me to expect a Cathy and Heathcliff type of connection that would remain after death. The biggest shock was the complete sense of nothing. Just like Emma Mayhew he simply did not exist. I knew Dexter’s despair so the way he coped with the aftermath of Emma’s death was particularly touching. If you have been on the same journey as a book’s character it makes it all the more poignant.

Another more recent novel that did the same thing was The Fault in our Stars. I know it was very American and written to be a tearjerker, but it worked on this reader and I’m not a teenager. Hazel has cancer but it has been halted by a clinical drug trial and she is in the strange limbo of dying but not yet. I thought the therapy group in the church was written brilliantly and the cynical commentary from Hazel and her friend who is losing his sight because of cancer is spot on. I felt at home with this type of gallow’s humour because it is the way I talk with other people who have Multiple Sclerosis just like me. We are in a similar state of not knowing whether we are sick or disabled, especially those of us with the relapsing remitting form of the condition. At group Hazel meets a boy called Augustus and he reminded me so much of my husband; full of cheeky self-confidence and cocky humour. When I met my husband he was very sure of the relationship straight away whereas I was a little scared of my immediate connection with him and hung back a little.

Realising I was scared, he backed off a little while letting me know it was okay because he knew we were meant to be together. Augustus is a little bit like this with Hazel who he constantly refers to as Hazel Grace. Augustus knows from the start that they meant to be together and her struggling against it is futile; their relationship is inevitable and since they are both so sick, what is the point in wasting time. My husband and I wasted no time. He asked me to marry him after two weeks and I thought about but eventually gave in; when I say ‘eventually’ it must have been a matter of days because we were married within 8 weeks of meeting face to face, and after 6 months of writing to each other. Hazel and Augustus have similar limitations but the relationship doesn’t become physical until their trip to Amsterdam. Hazel loves a book about a girl with cancer and the author is in Amsterdam. It is a book that has a similar effect on her that One Day had on me because it ends mid-sentence when the girl dies and is unable to continue her story; it is clever and infuriating in equal measure. Although Hazel loves the ending because it is real, she is also annoyed by it and has lots of questions about the other characters. When Augustus reads the book he is similarly enthralled and annoyed by the ending and on Hazel’s behalf starts an email correspondence with the book’s author in Amsterdam. The author’s assistant invites them to visit him, but they can’t take him up on it because Hazel’s parents can’t afford the trip. Augustus suggests using her ‘wish’ from the foundation that grants terminally ill children their last wish. Sadly and ironically Hazel expected to die years before and had used her wish when she was 13 to go to Disneyland. Hazel is ashamed to admit the cliché and Augustus cynically takes the piss out of her. Yet, he has a secret plan because Augustus did not use his wish and wants to use it to grand Hazel hers.

 I will not spoil the ending of the novel because it is still quite new, the film is in cinemas and not everyone has seen it but suffice to say I was in bits. It is an ending both expected and unexpected and the author writes this business of dying with realism even though this is a romantic novel. I cried immediately as I realised what was coming and then carried on until the end. It is a novel so bittersweet and I guess my own experiences fed into how much I enjoyed it. Last week my friend and I went to the cinema to see the film. I knew what was coming but still cried like a baby and when the lights came up I turned to apologise to my friend for the stifled sobbing and all the snot. My friend had tiny red eyes and couldn't even speak. As we were gathering our thoughts an elderly couple walked past and the man stopped. ‘That’s the most emotional film I've

 seen in years’ he said as he clutched his handkerchief.