Product Description

Campbell Armstrong met his first wife Eileen in Glasgow when they were both young. She was Jewish, the only daughter of an Orthodox family. When they married, Eileen showed Campbell the scar on her belly - the result of a Caesarean birth at 17. The baby had been given up for adoption in Yorkshire while Eileen got on with her life in Glasgow. The couple subsequently had three sons, and moved to America where Armstrong followed a career as an academic. He was also a drunk, a drug user and a belligerent partner. Though their marriage foundered, the pair remained good friends. Years later, when Armstrong had remarried and moved to Ireland, his son received a call from Eileen: she had cancer and was dying. The family flew out to America to see her. At the same time, far off in a Yorkshire house, a forty year old woman was trying to trace her mother. She was Barbara - her mother Eileen. After many hitches, the two get together and the awful truth is revealed, that Barbara, too, has cancer. What carries the two women through is their remarkable, positive personalities and - overall - an abiding love and integrity. This is a unique, poignant and incredibly positive memoir, full of candid self-knowledge and, ultimately, hope and love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #523286 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 279 pages

Review
'Passionate, poignant, utterly compulsive and moving' THE TIMES 'This is a triple tissue read and made all the more poignant because it really happened' Val Hennessy, DAILY MAIL 'Heartwrenching' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'Heart-rending, but never mawkish' EVE 'A remarkable book.' IRISH INDEPENDENT

Val Hennessy, DAILY MAIL
`This is a triple tissue read and made all the more poignant because it really happened'

SUNDAY TIMES
`Heartwrenching'

Customer Reviews

A book so beautifull it will move you to tears
This is by far the best book I have read ever. A truly great book affects the reader not only intellectually but emotionally and physically as well. This book does all three and then some. From the middle to the end of this poignant story I found my eyes blurred with tears almost unable to continue this tragic journey to its ultimate conclusion. And yet at the same time it vibrates with such hope and love that it fills your heart with joy. This book has touched me on so many levels I can only scratch the surface here. Suffice to say that it was both deep and profound and will stay with me always. I feel truly blessed to have read this book and would like to thank Campbell Armstrong, his family and all their friends for sharing this experience, strength and hope with all of us.

Heartbreakingly honest- unputdownable
This is the only book that I have ever read that I have had to put down because Its so sad in parts and the tears prevented me from seeing the page. but the story is fantastically written. I am sorry that I am only reading the books from this author now!!! Buy it and see for yourself!!

Reality check - it does really matter
I came to this book after struggling to get through James Patterson's hideous re-titled "See How They Run". This book is everything the latter was not - well written, moving and, above all, a real reality check.

In essence, it's Campbell's auto biography, but it's not really a chronology. Instead, it flits back and forth between times/periods of his life and focuses on his relationships with his women, his children and himself. Within that framework, the main emphasis is on his first wife and her battle with cancer.

Told with sensitivity, grace and pathos, this is a deeply moving book. As the story could, and probably does, apply to many of us it's also a wake up call to what really matters in life - our family and our friends.