Description

‘A companion for anyone navigating the hardships of loss and uncertainty’ – Octavia Bright, author of This Ragged Grace

A unflinching memoir exploring the realities of marriage, care-giving, how we die and how we grieve. Told with humour and courage, its raw honesty offers profound consolation in difficult times.

After thirteen years together, Sarah Tarlow’s husband Mark began to suffer from an undiagnosed illness, which rapidly left him incapable of caring for himself. Life – an intense juggling act of a demanding job, young children and looking after a depressed and frustrated parner – became hard.

One day, Mark waited for Sarah and their children to leave their home before ending his own life. Although Sarah had devoted her professional life as an archaeologist to the study of death and how we grieve, she found that nothing had prepared her for the reality of illness and the devastation of loss.

The Archaeology of Loss is a fiercely vulnerable, deeply intimate and yet unflinchingly direct memoir which describes a universal experience.
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‘Extraordinary, unflinching, wonderful, moving’ – Nina Stibbe, author of Went to London, Took the Dog
‘A poetic excavation of loss, grief and ritual’ – Graham Caveney, author of The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness
‘In the end, there is so much love in this book’ – The Times

Publisher Review

Look elsewhere for cheeriness; the pleasures offered here are those of intelligence and complexity in the hard times that will come to many of us. — Sarah Moss * The Guardian * Digs away at our collective fantasy that in dying or caring for the dying we are at our best. In reality, in either role we are often withdrawn, in pain, resentful, bad-tempered: our worst . . . addictively unsentimental. * The Times * Extraordinary, unflinching, wonderful, moving. — Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina A meticulously clear yet tender self-excavation exploring love and bereavement. — Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred Sarah Tarlow has harnessed the consoling power of unvarnished truth. Direct, honest and deeply compassionate, this book is a companion for anyone navigating the hardships of loss and uncertainty. — Octavia Bright, author of This Ragged Grace Brave, bold and exquisitely told and with such vibrancy and force . . . a personal story of love, grief, and pain perfectly framed by the author’s deep knowledge of the archaeologies of death and mourning. — Helen Paris, author of Lost Property A wonderful work of memoir . . . powerful, fiercely honest, grippingly written and utterly immersive. — Harry Whitehead, author of The Cannibal Spirit A tender and big-hearted embrace of a book . . . A poetic excavation of loss, grief and ritual. — Graham Caveney, author of The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness Scrupulously honest . . . Threaded through with tantalizing glimpses of the world of archaeology, Tarlow’s book is a raw, courageous examination of a sad ending to an uneasy relationship. * TLS * Profound and poignant . . . beautifully written. — Melanie Giles * Antiquity *