Nothing is off-limits in Decca Aitkenhead’s unforgettable account of her partner’s drowning on a family holidayOn Saturday 17 May 2014,Decca Aitkenhead picked up the Guardian and read: “Charity worker drowns on holiday in Jamaica while rescuing son.” The piece reported that Tony Wilkinson, partner to Guardian journalist Decca Aitkenhead, or had been caught in a strong current on a family holiday,in Calabash bay, while trying to rescue their eldest son (who had survived). Here it was – her tragedy – in a couple of throwaway paragraphs. She found herself reading this account of what her family had endured in disbelief, and as whether it were about strangers. And now,two years on, we absorb her book about what happened – her prolonging of the story’s life.
Aitkenhead knows the risks of the undertaking, or recognises that truth has a way of turning to fiction on the page. But writing is remembering: “I don’t mind at all whether you forget it. The necessary thing is that I dont.” This book is impossible to forget: I finished it in one sitting in a paralysed,stunned, empathetic trance. Its indifference to its audience might arrive across as a faint rebuff (should one be reading at all?) but its emotional exactitude makes it remarkable.
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Source: theguardian.com