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Wrong Rooms: A Memoir by Mark Sanderson
A beautifully written, moving and controversial memoir that examines just how high a price one can pay for love. In 1992 Mark Sanderson met the love of his life. A Lonely Hearts ad in TIME OUT may not have promised much, but a long and detailed letter from an Australian called Drew marked the beginning of a relationship Mark is still struggling to come to terms with. They moved in together in May 1993; in April 1994 Drew was diagnosed with skin cancer. He was told it would be a miracle if he were still alive in two years; three months later he was dead. WRONG ROOMS is their story -- a love story, a ghost story, a confession and a lament. Alternately heartbreaking and funny, the book is never less than searingly honest in the face of the most rigorous emotional trauma. In the process it forces us to consider our own values and actions, and how high a price we would pay for those we love.
- GenresBiographyNonfictionLGBT
Paperback
First published March 3, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 9, 2021
I found this book in a little street library perched on a fence in the next street. Otherwise I might never have read it as it was published in 2002. It’s titled ‘Wrong rooms’ because both the author and his partner “saw places we never expected to see. The blinkers were ripped from our eyes. We entered a grave new world of waiting rooms, consulting rooms, hospital wards and theatres. The fact that our lives had only just changed for the better made the shock even worse.”
It is a personal narrative. London-based Mark places an ad looking for a partner – and Australian computer programmer Drew responds. They fall in love and begin living together. It’s no plot spoiler to note that the book opens with Mark making a solo journey to visit Drew’s family in Australia. He has a heavy heart and something difficult to say to them.
It’s revealed quite early that Drew has died of cancer. The novel explores the impact of this illness on both of them but also the impact of the request that Drew makes of Mark. He asks him to help him end his life when the quality of life is diminished and he wants to die. Mark agrees to do this.
So a big part of the book focuses on Mark’s feelings about this decision (and how it’s enacted) and his grief after Drew dies. Obviously he is carrying a huge emotional burden – but also a moral/legal responsibility for helping someone end his life. He writes about it really well. I think this reviewer is right: “This book puts you in the presence of the heaviness of being. The manner is neither sentimental nor melodramatic, which is an achievement considering the extremity of the experiences and feelings described.”
I read this while I was listening to ‘Goodbye to all this’, Sofie Townsend’s podcast about the illness and death of her husband Russell (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t...). It is profoundly moving – and honest. At one stage, Sofie says something about the secret gratitude she has that it’s not her that is dying – it’s blunt and unsparing of herself. Mark’s book falls into a similar vein.
'Wrong rooms' begins with this quote from Cormac McCarthy (from The Crossing) and maybe it’s where I’d like to end in terms of reflecting on the book. “It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift.” I feel this quite strongly – with the deaths of people I have lived – the tension between the healing and the slow sliding extinction of pain (and memory) as their death passes into years of absence.
It is a personal narrative. London-based Mark places an ad looking for a partner – and Australian computer programmer Drew responds. They fall in love and begin living together. It’s no plot spoiler to note that the book opens with Mark making a solo journey to visit Drew’s family in Australia. He has a heavy heart and something difficult to say to them.
It’s revealed quite early that Drew has died of cancer. The novel explores the impact of this illness on both of them but also the impact of the request that Drew makes of Mark. He asks him to help him end his life when the quality of life is diminished and he wants to die. Mark agrees to do this.
So a big part of the book focuses on Mark’s feelings about this decision (and how it’s enacted) and his grief after Drew dies. Obviously he is carrying a huge emotional burden – but also a moral/legal responsibility for helping someone end his life. He writes about it really well. I think this reviewer is right: “This book puts you in the presence of the heaviness of being. The manner is neither sentimental nor melodramatic, which is an achievement considering the extremity of the experiences and feelings described.”
I read this while I was listening to ‘Goodbye to all this’, Sofie Townsend’s podcast about the illness and death of her husband Russell (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t...). It is profoundly moving – and honest. At one stage, Sofie says something about the secret gratitude she has that it’s not her that is dying – it’s blunt and unsparing of herself. Mark’s book falls into a similar vein.
'Wrong rooms' begins with this quote from Cormac McCarthy (from The Crossing) and maybe it’s where I’d like to end in terms of reflecting on the book. “It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift.” I feel this quite strongly – with the deaths of people I have lived – the tension between the healing and the slow sliding extinction of pain (and memory) as their death passes into years of absence.
January 15, 2013
Every January we travel to Christchurch and every year I think I have enough reading material. I'm always wrong, but luckily my parents in law have a massive selection of books. I picked this up off the shelf in our bedroom, and was unable to put it down again.
Wrong Rooms is not the sort of thing I usually read, although memoirs are my favourite type of non-fiction read. This memoir tells the tale of a love affair, and what happens when one of the lovers becomes terminally ill. This in itself is very moving, however Sanderson writes beautifully of his struggles with self-image and his homosexuality. His utter joy and the transformation his love for Aussie Drew has on his life is beautifully portrayed. And the tenderness he feels for him as he nurses him through his painfully brief illness, through to their painful final parting was utterly compelling and beautifully written.
While this book could become something that euthenasia campaigners champion, for me it was a story of a beautiful relationship, and what happens when it is gone too, the pain of Drew's loss was evident, and the way Sanderson writes of their time together, he paints an eloquent picture of all that there was to lose.
What a find to come across on the bookshelf - I would recommend anyone to pick it up deliberately.
Wrong Rooms is not the sort of thing I usually read, although memoirs are my favourite type of non-fiction read. This memoir tells the tale of a love affair, and what happens when one of the lovers becomes terminally ill. This in itself is very moving, however Sanderson writes beautifully of his struggles with self-image and his homosexuality. His utter joy and the transformation his love for Aussie Drew has on his life is beautifully portrayed. And the tenderness he feels for him as he nurses him through his painfully brief illness, through to their painful final parting was utterly compelling and beautifully written.
While this book could become something that euthenasia campaigners champion, for me it was a story of a beautiful relationship, and what happens when it is gone too, the pain of Drew's loss was evident, and the way Sanderson writes of their time together, he paints an eloquent picture of all that there was to lose.
What a find to come across on the bookshelf - I would recommend anyone to pick it up deliberately.
April 10, 2025
Touching memoir written in 2002 about the short-lived relationship between author Mark, and his partner Drew during the period 1992-1994. Aussie Drew being diagnosed with skin cancer and dying just three months later, a few months short of his 30th birthday. It reminded me of George Michael who similarly had such a short time with his great love Anselmo 😢
Reading it in 2025 highlights how much has changed with regard to rights of same-sex couples, and attitudes towards them. The theme of assisted-dying is also addressed. I enjoyed the setting in 90s London, when ordinary working people could buy properties there and still afford to go out every night!
Reading it in 2025 highlights how much has changed with regard to rights of same-sex couples, and attitudes towards them. The theme of assisted-dying is also addressed. I enjoyed the setting in 90s London, when ordinary working people could buy properties there and still afford to go out every night!
December 1, 2013
I thought the organization was a bit odd at times....a lot of streams of events that seemed unrelated. Sometimes a thought was made and I waited for the conclusion or development of that idea but it never came.
What I liked about the book was the brutal honesty. It could not have been easy to write as he does not paint himself to be a saint. I felt he really tried to be painfully truthful without caring how he may be perceived.
Scary, too. I have never watched someone die of cancer and I hope I never do based on this account. Truly horrific.
What I liked about the book was the brutal honesty. It could not have been easy to write as he does not paint himself to be a saint. I felt he really tried to be painfully truthful without caring how he may be perceived.
Scary, too. I have never watched someone die of cancer and I hope I never do based on this account. Truly horrific.
July 17, 2025
finished reading one day before the 16th july. nothing has made me believe in something more than picking this up and reading it on the anniversary…31 years ago almost to the day. very moving i don’t think drew’s face will leave my brain for a long time. maybe 40 years into the future i’ll still remember reading this and remember his face and that’s nice.
i wanted to read it like a fiction but it was so human and honest that i just kept getting dragged out of my escapism. a lot of the time it just made me think of my grandma’s empty face when she was dying and we had to leave her alone in her room to go home. no matter how moving it was i don’t think i would feel as much if it was about straight people it’s odd the distance i feel sometimes.
a few of the lines gave me a lump in my throat but the beginning, before i even knew anything really got me;
‘My life with Drew had seemed more real to me than any subsequent period. It was as if the clock had stopped on 16th July 1994. Writing Wrong Rooms has started the clock ticking again, even if it does occasionally strike thirteen. It was the only way I could bring Drew back to life. However, he could not speak for himself so there are times when I have had to put words into his mouth. This was easy enough: I still talk to him everyday.’
i wanted to read it like a fiction but it was so human and honest that i just kept getting dragged out of my escapism. a lot of the time it just made me think of my grandma’s empty face when she was dying and we had to leave her alone in her room to go home. no matter how moving it was i don’t think i would feel as much if it was about straight people it’s odd the distance i feel sometimes.
a few of the lines gave me a lump in my throat but the beginning, before i even knew anything really got me;
‘My life with Drew had seemed more real to me than any subsequent period. It was as if the clock had stopped on 16th July 1994. Writing Wrong Rooms has started the clock ticking again, even if it does occasionally strike thirteen. It was the only way I could bring Drew back to life. However, he could not speak for himself so there are times when I have had to put words into his mouth. This was easy enough: I still talk to him everyday.’
November 3, 2024
When his partner Drew was diagnosed with terminal cancer back in 1994 and suffered an extreme reaction to the gruelling round of chemo he had to undergo, Mark Sanderson promised that if things reached the point where Drew felt he just couldn't bear it any more, he would find a way to help him die. It was a promise he hoped he'd never have to keep - but keep it he did, and once Drew's suffering was finally over, the worst part of his began.
This is a gruelling and heart-breaking read, a brave testament to the author's commitment to the love of his life, and also a sad reminder of how difficult things still were for gay couples during the last decades of the 20th century - Mark was unable to come out to his parents, for example, until some years after Drew's death. But it's well worth sticking with to the end, as beyond all the secrecy, prejudice, loss, grief, and years of guilt and post-traumatic depression, there is a happy ending. A courageous and eloquent memoir.
This is a gruelling and heart-breaking read, a brave testament to the author's commitment to the love of his life, and also a sad reminder of how difficult things still were for gay couples during the last decades of the 20th century - Mark was unable to come out to his parents, for example, until some years after Drew's death. But it's well worth sticking with to the end, as beyond all the secrecy, prejudice, loss, grief, and years of guilt and post-traumatic depression, there is a happy ending. A courageous and eloquent memoir.
May 13, 2022
I've been thinking about why I didn't connect with this story in the way I have with books covering similar territory. I think it comes down to the writing style. For me there was too much "tell" and not enough "show", the emotional experiences were intellectualised and it meant I was distanced as a reader (rather than immersed). I thought it also lacked reflection. The decision Mark makes is important and has ramifications for many people and as reader, I wasn't privy to any thought about it. I wanted to share in Mark's decision making process, to understand what he considered and why he went ahead (other than "I promised.")
March 1, 2024
A very thought provoking if difficult read at times.
October 12, 2025
A very sad tale, but grateful to have read this moving story
May 7, 2014
Another paperback find in a community bookshop. I had not heard of the author and read it with no preconceptions. Fiction authors and song writers may draw upon their own experiences, reveal more of themselves than non writers, but to write an autobiographical work like this is on another plane.
To read if you have suffered a tragic loss? I can't answer that. By tragic I mean anyone taken far too young or with undeserved suffering, not the deaths of elderly relatives or the inevitable loss of a life long partner.
To read when things are going well does not stop you sharing Mark's exploration of love and loss and confirming what most heterosexuals have always understood - that most gay people want a partner for life, a deep relationship. To read about events that took place in the nineties is to realise how far we have come, gay partnerships happily recognised by families and society, no need to live a lie.
Of course medicine progresses, cancer recovery rates improve, but there are still patients who draw the short straw and it is wrong to think of Cancer as a battle that must be fought - you can't always win. But you can try and do your best for a loved one, stay with them till the end.
To read if you have suffered a tragic loss? I can't answer that. By tragic I mean anyone taken far too young or with undeserved suffering, not the deaths of elderly relatives or the inevitable loss of a life long partner.
To read when things are going well does not stop you sharing Mark's exploration of love and loss and confirming what most heterosexuals have always understood - that most gay people want a partner for life, a deep relationship. To read about events that took place in the nineties is to realise how far we have come, gay partnerships happily recognised by families and society, no need to live a lie.
Of course medicine progresses, cancer recovery rates improve, but there are still patients who draw the short straw and it is wrong to think of Cancer as a battle that must be fought - you can't always win. But you can try and do your best for a loved one, stay with them till the end.
January 24, 2015
This is the first time I've read a memoir like this, and I really enjoyed it! It was so interesting reading about Mark Sanderson's life with Drew and how he coped in the aftermath. The writing was excellent, although it was difficult to keep up with the different names that were mentioned. It was an insight into the life of someone who struggled with where he was going in life and, despite what Sanderson himself might think, I believe there was a happy ending as it showed that you can get through hard times.
November 22, 2012
The quality of this book is in its harrowing honesty. It's a tough story to read, especially with the memory of recently departed loved ones lurking, but not a patch on how difficult it must have been for Mark Sanderson to write. But hopefully in the writing, as in the reading, was a catharsis. Life is displayed here in all its tragic glory, and the author must be thanked for bearing his soul to offer relief.
June 3, 2011
Discovered this book in Bookstore when am have a holiday at Kuala Lumpur in year 2007......
I burst into tears when i read half of the book......
An Extraordinary account of and extraordinary love....between Author and his dying lover.
Sadness but honest and brave book about the loss of lovers......
I'm highly recommended it.......
I burst into tears when i read half of the book......
An Extraordinary account of and extraordinary love....between Author and his dying lover.
Sadness but honest and brave book about the loss of lovers......
I'm highly recommended it.......
March 16, 2012
I've never been so touched by any other book or film in my life. Maybe it's because it was so close to home or I was getting my man period, but I was crying in the tube all the way to work and back for two days reading this book. Amazing book!
April 12, 2011
Looking good so farm, I actually read this about 6 years aog or so, so I have an idea whats gonna happen but I like the way its put together
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July 27, 2011Beautiful, Brave Book!
October 6, 2012
Not my most favourite book - although assisted suicide is always a reality in 'these' situations...
January 2, 2016
Oh lawd that was sad...
November 16, 2012
Touching story. Did make me cry.
March 31, 2013
A tough topic wrapped up in a touching story. I hope to never find myself in Mark's situation.
April 1, 2013
A heart wrenchingly sad tale. I sobbed most of the way through this and stayed up most of the night to finish reading it.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews