Memoir: People mourn in different ways: personally, I've always felt grief to be a private experience, kept close about the heart. However, others see it differently and seek out panaceas in the company of those in the public domain who have suffered loss in one form or anothe, writes Vincent Banville..
John Quinn was married to his wife, Olive, for 33 years, most of them happy. Their initial meeting was in a sanatorium in the 1960s, when both were suffering from the ravages of tuberculosis. From the start, they wrote letters to one another, both of them being gifted in that form of literary communication.
In 2001, while holidaying in Rosslare, Olive suffered a fatal heart attack while swimming. The shock for John, needless to say, was overpowering, and in the days, weeks and months following her demise he sought solace in rereading their letters to one another.
Being a renowned radio producer, he did a programme called A Letter to Olive on Easter Sunday in 2002, and the overwhelming reaction to it led to him publishing this present volume.
The book faithfully sketches the Quinns' life together, the ups and downs and their enduring fellow-feeling for one another. Although written in sadness, it makes for uplifting reading, and, in documenting one man's depth of sorrow, may also help others mired in the inconsolable heartache of losing a loved one.
I'm reminded of something Raymond Chandler wrote after the death of his wife: "She was the beat of my heart for thirty years . . . She was the music heard faintly at the edge of sound . . ."
Vincent Banville's novel, An End to Flight, was recently re-issued
Sea of Love, Sea of Loss: Letters to Olive. By John Quinn, Town House, 160pp, €12.99