Kadian Journal - Hardcover

Harding, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434023019 ISBN 13: 9780434023011

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2014

Synopsis

In July 2012 Thomas Harding’s fourteen-year-old son Kadian was killed in a bicycle accident. Shortly afterwards Thomas began to write. This book is the result.

Beginning on the day of Kadian’s death, and continuing to the one-year anniversary, and beyond, Kadian Journal is a record of grief in its rawest form, and of a mind in shock and questioning a strange new reality. Interspersed within the journal are fragments of memory: jewel-bright everyday moments that slowly combine to form a biography of a lost son, and a lost life.

Kadian Journal is a document of startling bravery and candour - a description of a family dislocated and united by tragedy, and a beautiful and moving tribute to a son.

About this title

Review:

"Out of unbearable grief comes a book of profound love: there is no shred of self-pity in this marvellous book. The malicious and random brutality of fate and the racking pain of loss have met their match in Thomas Harding who miraculously turns those horrors into something memorably great." (Stephen Fry)

"Harding's remarkable memoir is written with transparent emotional intelligence. It makes one understand how it was for a father to lose a boy unique in his eyes and loved by everyone who knew him: Kadian." (Kate Kellaway Observer)

"This is the very best account of a parent’s bereavement I have ever read, a powerfully immediate and clear-eyed record of a devastating experience. It is also a love story, true and deep – offering film-like clips of the joys of parenthood, and of the agony when it abruptly ends." (Julia Samuel, Founder and Patron of Child Bereavement UK)

"Heartbreaking ... profoundly moving ... a tender tribute." (Daily Mail)

"A wonderful book, unflinching in its portrayal of the agony - and fury - of grief but at the same time filled with the incandescent love and joy felt by a father for his son, his beautiful boy. Rarely has that intimacy been so lyrically and beautifully described." (Sally Brampton)

"Heart-breaking ... For a man in such raw, intense pain, Harding writes with incredible precision ... Kadian Harding’s 14 years shine brilliantly from its pages ... Thomas Harding has been generous in sharing his boy with me and I am grateful he found words." (Helen Brown Daily Telegraph)

"This book is raw and heart-breaking but it is never intrusive or gratuitous. The writing is real and spare, the love so very deep that the reader can scarcely look away ... A beautiful tribute." (Sunday Express)

"A memoir, a threnody and a love song" (The Times)

"Stunning. The most moving book I've read." (Ian Austin MP)

"A raw and compelling read, weaving between the accident, its aftermath, precious moments in Kadian's life and the unique relationship between a father and son." (Angela Levin Daily Telegraph)

Book Description:

A poignant, painful and inspiring evocation of a lost son, and of the burden of grief from the Costa Award shortlisted author of Hanns and Rudolf.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0434023019
• ISBN 13: 9780434023011
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256