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The Iceberg
In 2008, Marion Coutts' husband, the art critic Tom Lubbock, was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and told that he had not more than two years to live. The tumour was located in the area of the brain that controls speech and language, and would eventually rob him of the ability to speak. Tom was 53 when he died, leaving Marion and their son Eugene, just two years old, alone. In short bursts of beautiful, textured prose, Coutts describes the eighteen months leading up to Tom's death.
The Iceberg is an unflinching, honest exploration of staring death in the face, finding solace in strange places, finding beauty and even joy in the experience of dying. Written with extraordinary narrative force and power, it is almost shocking in its rawness. Nothing is kept from the reader: the fury, the occasional spells of selfishness, the indignity of being trapped in a hopeless situation. It is a story of pain and sadness, but also an uplifting and life-affirming tale of great fortitude, courage, determination – and above all, love.
The Iceberg is an unflinching, honest exploration of staring death in the face, finding solace in strange places, finding beauty and even joy in the experience of dying. Written with extraordinary narrative force and power, it is almost shocking in its rawness. Nothing is kept from the reader: the fury, the occasional spells of selfishness, the indignity of being trapped in a hopeless situation. It is a story of pain and sadness, but also an uplifting and life-affirming tale of great fortitude, courage, determination – and above all, love.
294 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2014
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7599 people want to read
About the author
Marion Coutts
4 books20 followersMarion Coutts is an artist and writer. She was born in Nigeria and studied in Scotland. She works in video, film, sculpture and photography. Her work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including solo shows at Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Wellcome Collection, London. She has held fellowships at Tate Liverpool and Kettle's Yard, Cambridge. In 2001 she married the art critic Tom Lubbock. After his death in 2011, she wrote the introduction to his memoir Until Further Notice, I am Alive and is the editor of English Graphic, an anthology of his essays. Her book The Iceberg will be published in 2014. She is a Lecturer in Art at Goldsmiths College and lives in London.
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March 19, 2017
(I have posted a concise version of my review at The Bookbag.)
“Something has happened. A piece of news. We have had a diagnosis that has the status of an event. The news makes a rupture with what went before.” With these plain, unsentimental words Coutts begins her devastating yet mysteriously gorgeous account of her husband Tom Lubbock’s decline and death from a brain tumor. Currently only available in the UK, the book was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, was a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction and the Costa Biography award, and recently won the 2015 Wellcome Book Prize for medical-themed writing.
I have read seemingly countless cancer memoirs, caregiver accounts, and/or stories of surviving the loss of a loved partner. What makes this one distinctive? There are two things about it that made it, for me, absolutely essential reading. First is the language, a rather astonishing mixture of understated narration and artistic whimsy that pitches it perfectly between the twin pitfalls of dull reportage and mawkishness. Secondly is its personal impact, on which more later.
Never have I encountered a writing style quite like this. Coutts’s phrases and sentences are often short and simple, a piling up of matter-of-fact statements that somehow, seemingly effortlessly, convey the intolerable: “We are three [their son, Ev, was two years old]. The consciousness of one of us is being interrupted. His self-hood is in jeopardy. How will he be? Will he still be mine? What about knowledge of love? That’s the main thing.”
In clear-eyed, unflinching prose, Coutts chronicles the inevitable: “There is going to be destruction: the obliteration of a person, his intellect, his experience and his agency. I am to watch it. That is my part. There is no deserving or undeserving. There is no better and no worse.” With that sardonic tweak of the marriage vows, she accepts that even the rarest love has no power against the course of a debilitating condition; “disease is a wave and we are always, always in its wake. Like survivors floating behind we are knocked stupid.” (I’ve passed this book on to my mother, who seems bewildered by the modified stream-of-consciousness approach; “does anyone really talk to themselves like this?” she asked me. What I’m not sure she’s grasped is that, as natural as it may sound, this sort of prose is very deliberate and constructed.)
Coutts is a visual artist, and it shows: there are some remarkable scenes here in which she retreats to exhibit her life, a kind of tableau of helplessness and pain. “From a distance, I can look into our house and see the small family inside it. How easily we may be overrun! How defenseless we are. It is pitiful.” Pitiful, yes, but this never translates into self-pitying. There is a dignified and necessary detachment to Coutts’s vision, as if she is a photographer capturing the muted aftermath of emotion: “There is a filmic quality to our life: dreamy, drowned and saved.”
And indeed, it is the cinematic immediacy of the writing that saves this book from banality or melodrama. Surgeries, tense conferences with doctors, a toddler’s tantrums, endless modifications to their home and routines – it could all make for boring lists. Instead I devoured every detail, even e-mail updates to friends and family and a prose poem about the dishes people brought. Likewise, the litany of hurt, fear and incremental losses could be maudlin, but Coutts turns repetition into haunting mantras: “I thought that there were limits to the absorption of pain. I thought that it was finite. I thought that it would stop. … It is all explosions and aftershocks. There is the trauma of love and there is the trauma of death but ultimately it is all trauma.”
There are three doomed figures in this unfolding tragic reel. Marion is “a tiny diver seen from the ground black against the sun. I am on the highest level of the tower.” While Tom circles the great chasm of death, first a jovial pasha and later “blurring, borderless, bespoke: nearing a liquid state,” Marion approaches the title’s monolith: “I am nearing the iceberg. My tears are sonar. They release on impact a faint understanding of what lies beneath: a vast solid, the floating mass of ice that is still to come.” And then there is Ev, who, in a neat little irony, was learning to talk just as Tom was losing his own grip on language. Ev was growing by leaps and bounds; Tom was diminishing bit by bit. Coutts saw clearly what her own role was in this unraveling domestic trinity:
Lubbock, a journalist and art critic, wrote his own short book about his experience with brain cancer, the wryly titled Until Further Notice, I Am Alive. Toward the end it was very much a joint effort with Marion (she wrote an introduction); she was often the only one who could understand his limited vocabulary, even if it took a round of twenty questions to elicit his meaning. So, much like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, there is a rather amazing story behind its composition that doesn’t necessarily come through in the text itself. I read it in 2012 and don’t remember being moved by it. But The Iceberg, well, it had me sobbing at many points.
If it is such a gut-wrenching read, why embark on it? I suppose because I’ve always believed there’s something to the classical theory of catharsis. I.A. Richards explained it in his 1924 book, Principles of Literary Criticism: “Pity, the impulse to approach, and Terror, the impulse to retreat, are brought in Tragedy to a reconciliation which they find nowhere else.” We come closer to look on at the horror, but then, relieved and purged of emotions, we get to walk away.
Some do, anyway. But not my sister. She is on the same path as Marion Coutts. My brother-in-law was first diagnosed with a stage-four brain tumor (though not the same kind as Tom Lubbock’s) in December 2010. He is one of the funniest and most charismatic people I have ever known, and he threw himself into his cancer journey with both good humor and good faith. He had surgery and chemotherapy. It went away. Then it came back with a vengeance. We don’t know how long he has left. Already he has outlived his diagnosis by a year and a half. He’s somewhere along the same arc of speech loss and physical disability that Lubbock traveled. Thus The Iceberg comes uncomfortably close to home for me and my family – that explains why I’ve put off writing this review for a long time, having read it in August.
All the same, I felt privileged to read this book, and I will pass it on to anyone else in my family who wants to read it – even my sister if she one day feels ready. Why? Because Coutts has turned the impossible, the unbearable, into a singular work of art.
I don’t believe in much nowadays, but I believe in the power of books to convict and to console, to express rage and to bring rest. No matter if you’ve been personally affected by brain cancer; you should consider reading this book an essential step in developing empathy for human pain.
Related reads:
A husband’s speech loss after a medical crisis and a wife’s attempts to cope are elements shared with One Hundred Names for Love by Diane Ackerman. No Saints Around Here is Susan Allen Toth’s memoir of being a full-time caregiver for her husband, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease for a decade before his death.
“Something has happened. A piece of news. We have had a diagnosis that has the status of an event. The news makes a rupture with what went before.” With these plain, unsentimental words Coutts begins her devastating yet mysteriously gorgeous account of her husband Tom Lubbock’s decline and death from a brain tumor. Currently only available in the UK, the book was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, was a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction and the Costa Biography award, and recently won the 2015 Wellcome Book Prize for medical-themed writing.
I have read seemingly countless cancer memoirs, caregiver accounts, and/or stories of surviving the loss of a loved partner. What makes this one distinctive? There are two things about it that made it, for me, absolutely essential reading. First is the language, a rather astonishing mixture of understated narration and artistic whimsy that pitches it perfectly between the twin pitfalls of dull reportage and mawkishness. Secondly is its personal impact, on which more later.
Never have I encountered a writing style quite like this. Coutts’s phrases and sentences are often short and simple, a piling up of matter-of-fact statements that somehow, seemingly effortlessly, convey the intolerable: “We are three [their son, Ev, was two years old]. The consciousness of one of us is being interrupted. His self-hood is in jeopardy. How will he be? Will he still be mine? What about knowledge of love? That’s the main thing.”
In clear-eyed, unflinching prose, Coutts chronicles the inevitable: “There is going to be destruction: the obliteration of a person, his intellect, his experience and his agency. I am to watch it. That is my part. There is no deserving or undeserving. There is no better and no worse.” With that sardonic tweak of the marriage vows, she accepts that even the rarest love has no power against the course of a debilitating condition; “disease is a wave and we are always, always in its wake. Like survivors floating behind we are knocked stupid.” (I’ve passed this book on to my mother, who seems bewildered by the modified stream-of-consciousness approach; “does anyone really talk to themselves like this?” she asked me. What I’m not sure she’s grasped is that, as natural as it may sound, this sort of prose is very deliberate and constructed.)
Coutts is a visual artist, and it shows: there are some remarkable scenes here in which she retreats to exhibit her life, a kind of tableau of helplessness and pain. “From a distance, I can look into our house and see the small family inside it. How easily we may be overrun! How defenseless we are. It is pitiful.” Pitiful, yes, but this never translates into self-pitying. There is a dignified and necessary detachment to Coutts’s vision, as if she is a photographer capturing the muted aftermath of emotion: “There is a filmic quality to our life: dreamy, drowned and saved.”
And indeed, it is the cinematic immediacy of the writing that saves this book from banality or melodrama. Surgeries, tense conferences with doctors, a toddler’s tantrums, endless modifications to their home and routines – it could all make for boring lists. Instead I devoured every detail, even e-mail updates to friends and family and a prose poem about the dishes people brought. Likewise, the litany of hurt, fear and incremental losses could be maudlin, but Coutts turns repetition into haunting mantras: “I thought that there were limits to the absorption of pain. I thought that it was finite. I thought that it would stop. … It is all explosions and aftershocks. There is the trauma of love and there is the trauma of death but ultimately it is all trauma.”
There are three doomed figures in this unfolding tragic reel. Marion is “a tiny diver seen from the ground black against the sun. I am on the highest level of the tower.” While Tom circles the great chasm of death, first a jovial pasha and later “blurring, borderless, bespoke: nearing a liquid state,” Marion approaches the title’s monolith: “I am nearing the iceberg. My tears are sonar. They release on impact a faint understanding of what lies beneath: a vast solid, the floating mass of ice that is still to come.” And then there is Ev, who, in a neat little irony, was learning to talk just as Tom was losing his own grip on language. Ev was growing by leaps and bounds; Tom was diminishing bit by bit. Coutts saw clearly what her own role was in this unraveling domestic trinity:
My job is threefold.
1. Not to let Tom be destroyed before his death but to help him live it fully in his own way with all his power.
2. Not to let Ev be destroyed before Tom’s death but to help him live it fully in his own way with all his power.
3. Not to let myself be destroyed. See 1 and 2.
That’s it.
Lubbock, a journalist and art critic, wrote his own short book about his experience with brain cancer, the wryly titled Until Further Notice, I Am Alive. Toward the end it was very much a joint effort with Marion (she wrote an introduction); she was often the only one who could understand his limited vocabulary, even if it took a round of twenty questions to elicit his meaning. So, much like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, there is a rather amazing story behind its composition that doesn’t necessarily come through in the text itself. I read it in 2012 and don’t remember being moved by it. But The Iceberg, well, it had me sobbing at many points.
If it is such a gut-wrenching read, why embark on it? I suppose because I’ve always believed there’s something to the classical theory of catharsis. I.A. Richards explained it in his 1924 book, Principles of Literary Criticism: “Pity, the impulse to approach, and Terror, the impulse to retreat, are brought in Tragedy to a reconciliation which they find nowhere else.” We come closer to look on at the horror, but then, relieved and purged of emotions, we get to walk away.
Some do, anyway. But not my sister. She is on the same path as Marion Coutts. My brother-in-law was first diagnosed with a stage-four brain tumor (though not the same kind as Tom Lubbock’s) in December 2010. He is one of the funniest and most charismatic people I have ever known, and he threw himself into his cancer journey with both good humor and good faith. He had surgery and chemotherapy. It went away. Then it came back with a vengeance. We don’t know how long he has left. Already he has outlived his diagnosis by a year and a half. He’s somewhere along the same arc of speech loss and physical disability that Lubbock traveled. Thus The Iceberg comes uncomfortably close to home for me and my family – that explains why I’ve put off writing this review for a long time, having read it in August.
All the same, I felt privileged to read this book, and I will pass it on to anyone else in my family who wants to read it – even my sister if she one day feels ready. Why? Because Coutts has turned the impossible, the unbearable, into a singular work of art.
I don’t believe in much nowadays, but I believe in the power of books to convict and to console, to express rage and to bring rest. No matter if you’ve been personally affected by brain cancer; you should consider reading this book an essential step in developing empathy for human pain.
Related reads:
A husband’s speech loss after a medical crisis and a wife’s attempts to cope are elements shared with One Hundred Names for Love by Diane Ackerman. No Saints Around Here is Susan Allen Toth’s memoir of being a full-time caregiver for her husband, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease for a decade before his death.
October 12, 2020
I tried to savour this beautiful book; to allow myself only a little taste every day, not just because I knew how it would end and I wanted to delay that, but because the writing is rich, full-flavoured and as dense as a Christmas cake soaked in brandy. Each bite had to be digested and considered slowly.
It is lyrical and touching without in any way being maudlin or sentimental. I don't think Marion Coutts set out to touch us, but she does.
It is lyrical and touching without in any way being maudlin or sentimental. I don't think Marion Coutts set out to touch us, but she does.
January 19, 2016
I feel utterly privileged to have been able to read this book. Of course, a memoir about a husband's illness and eventual death from a brain tumour is by no means an easy read. It's personal, intimate and passionate, everything a memoir like this should be. But Coutts manages to create something that is more than just a touching personal memoir, but also a truly special tribute both to her husband and to her own bravery. This memoir has a striking and beautiful, lyrical writing style, that powerfully conveys the terrible and inevitable, the surreal unbelievability of the situation, which all the same is surrounded by the normal, domestic life that Coutts must keep going despite everything:
"Maintaining the thinnest facade of a functioning family that tries to act as others do - plan ahead, drive somewhere, go on holiday, relax - is beyond us. We are smashed. Insecurity jams the gears on every action. Each time we are toppled. I feel a fool over and over again for trying."Highly recommended and something I am very glad to have read. Although I can't say I'll be in a hurry to read a book with a similar subject matter any time soon, as this was, understandably, emotionally draining. I am amazed that Coutts could open up to us readers, complete strangers, by publishing something so personal. I think that shows a wonderful sense of strength.
February 1, 2019
5 stars, not a gram of stardust less.
I recommend this book to anyone who've lost someone really close (like I did with my own mother). Lately I've read a lot of these memoires dealing with cancer, loss, grief, but except for CS Lewis' A grief observed, nothing comes close to this one. It is at the same time delineative and poetic. Writing doesn't come closer to the heart of the matter and the matter of the heart than here.
I recommend this book to anyone who've lost someone really close (like I did with my own mother). Lately I've read a lot of these memoires dealing with cancer, loss, grief, but except for CS Lewis' A grief observed, nothing comes close to this one. It is at the same time delineative and poetic. Writing doesn't come closer to the heart of the matter and the matter of the heart than here.
March 29, 2015
Perhaps it's because, like the author's husband, my dad's final life-ending tumour affected his language centre that I was particularly drawn to the writing in this book. I can see how some people may not find the writing style appealing - I thought it's staccato rhythm was well-suited to how my mind felt during the surreal time when my dad was dying. But even before I experienced my dad dying, I could relate to quite a bit of her mental tumbles.
I loved the author's visual descriptions and analogies.
Here are a couple of examples:
I am without conversation and without insight. I have occasional flashes of wit but free-floating, not tied to anything and my words come up impetuous and sudden, like a child's vomit.
--
Maintaining the thinnest facade of a functioning family that tries to act as others do - plan ahead, drive somewhere, go on holiday, relax - is beyond us. We are smashed. Insecurity jams the gears on every action. Each time we are toppled. I feel a fool over and over again for trying.
--
I am lying like a blind dopey old mole in the road waiting for the lorry to hit me. Somewhere deep in my moley consciousness I have an idea that when the lorry does hit me, I, the mole will be able to deal with it.
--
There are longer paragraphs with quirkier and more touching metaphors and pictures. It's one of the few books that I've taken the time to savour slowly in recent times (really makes a change the all the business books I've been gorging).
Painful, moving and "enjoyable".
I loved the author's visual descriptions and analogies.
Here are a couple of examples:
I am without conversation and without insight. I have occasional flashes of wit but free-floating, not tied to anything and my words come up impetuous and sudden, like a child's vomit.
--
Maintaining the thinnest facade of a functioning family that tries to act as others do - plan ahead, drive somewhere, go on holiday, relax - is beyond us. We are smashed. Insecurity jams the gears on every action. Each time we are toppled. I feel a fool over and over again for trying.
--
I am lying like a blind dopey old mole in the road waiting for the lorry to hit me. Somewhere deep in my moley consciousness I have an idea that when the lorry does hit me, I, the mole will be able to deal with it.
--
There are longer paragraphs with quirkier and more touching metaphors and pictures. It's one of the few books that I've taken the time to savour slowly in recent times (really makes a change the all the business books I've been gorging).
Painful, moving and "enjoyable".
March 7, 2018
In questo periodo attiro come una calamita libri che parlano di morte, di malattia, di chi rimane e sente la necessità di raccontarlo. Non se se questo libro sia stato tradotto in italiano, ma vi invito a cercarlo o a leggerne qualcosa sul Guardian, dove l'ho trovato io. La trama? Un po' sempre quella: questa volta è il marito che si ammala, e colei che ha la sfortuna di raccontarlo è la moglie. Entrambi cinquantenni e con un figlio molto piccolo.E' un libro faticoso? Sì. E' un libro doloroso? Sì ma nemmeno troppo per chi ci è passato. E', essenzialmente, un libro molto bello che racconta la malattia e il precipizio dentro cui tutto finisce e lo racconta in maniera intelligente e forte e mai autocommiserativo e molto lucido. Io ci ho trovato dentro tanta forza e tanta passione e, anche se spesso mi ha portato a orribili ricordi, l'ho sempre letto con interesse e molta ammirazione.
Poi sì, sono un po' stufa di leggere su questo tema e sì, ho voglia di andare lontano e leggere tutto il giorno libri classici. Ho voglia di Emma Bovary, di Anna Karenina, di Fabrizio del Dongo, di Margherita Gautier e di principe Andrej.
Poi sì, sono un po' stufa di leggere su questo tema e sì, ho voglia di andare lontano e leggere tutto il giorno libri classici. Ho voglia di Emma Bovary, di Anna Karenina, di Fabrizio del Dongo, di Margherita Gautier e di principe Andrej.
March 3, 2019
That was lovely. I don't know how she did it, and I don't think she realizes the depth and universality of what she has written. I suspect she thinks she wrote about one family's experience. But there is something so heroic about her -- asking friends for what she needs, telling us about her emotional turmoil and her occasional frustration with her toddler, staying so deeply connected to her husband.
I was so sorry that she had such a shit time with palliative care, and I was sorry too that she had to stumble to hospice out of luck and not because she was directed there, but I was so happy to see hospice, presented to her as failure or as unpredictable, become her friend and ally and, above all, to be the facilitator for what was right for the family, rather than imposing their own rules or structure on her. My experience of hospice in the best of circumstances is that it frees up the patient and the family to be truly present for one another without the distractions and drama of treatment, and plans, and goals, and fears of the unknown. I feel as though Marion was able to be present with the unknown at the hospice because of how she was held there. This is a lovely lovely book that I will read again. I think I will always be shocked, however, that she didn't get a good cup of coffee at the hospice. Maybe they only had tea on offer.
Anyway, read this.
P.S. I thought often of Diane Ackerman's lovely book One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir while reading Coutts's descriptions of communicating with her husband, and recommend it.
I was so sorry that she had such a shit time with palliative care, and I was sorry too that she had to stumble to hospice out of luck and not because she was directed there, but I was so happy to see hospice, presented to her as failure or as unpredictable, become her friend and ally and, above all, to be the facilitator for what was right for the family, rather than imposing their own rules or structure on her. My experience of hospice in the best of circumstances is that it frees up the patient and the family to be truly present for one another without the distractions and drama of treatment, and plans, and goals, and fears of the unknown. I feel as though Marion was able to be present with the unknown at the hospice because of how she was held there. This is a lovely lovely book that I will read again. I think I will always be shocked, however, that she didn't get a good cup of coffee at the hospice. Maybe they only had tea on offer.
Anyway, read this.
P.S. I thought often of Diane Ackerman's lovely book One Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir while reading Coutts's descriptions of communicating with her husband, and recommend it.
February 24, 2019
I won't be adding this book to the Phobia or Depression discussion groups . Author has a great use of language but the subject , a two-year + battle her husband wages with brain cancer , does not make this read one of the feel-good category . Sobering if you know someone who is going through a terminal carcinoma , but tough reading even so .
April 20, 2016
I have read two incredibly powerful books almost back to back: the history of Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp for women, and now, The Iceberg. Oh boy. The Iceberg. A memoir by Marion Coutts that narrates her husband's illness with brain cancer. I won't say battle because there is no winning. Sparsely and precisely written, but packed with underlying currents that are extremely intense. Coutts is startlingly very matter-of-fact, but in this memoir, she underlines what it is to be human, what it is to be ill, what it is to be loved, valued, needed, and what it means to lose the floor beneath you. Never sentimental, never maudlin, never morose, never pitying, we follow Coutts and her small family through to the inevitable; her husband dies. We know this from the beginning. But it is the path we take with them that is shocking, naked, and raw. And you feel it. It's not a simple read, and after I finished it, I sat on the couch for a long time, just sitting. Everything I could possibly do seemed insignificant after reading the last line. And that is what makes this book so profound, and make Coutts such a force of a writer. Not an easy read, but an incredible one.
August 7, 2018
I've read multiple cancer memoirs since the death of my wife (from cancer), and this is one of the relatively few I've come across written solely from the perspective of the surviving spouse.
The style was quite different. While there was plenty of factual biography and descriptions of day-to-day life, the book was written in a style that I'd call free verse poetry. This gives it a hard-to-pin down, almost dreamy, feel to everything.
What may be hard for readers who haven't gone through this is that that is a very good representation of what it feels like to go through that as a spouse. Although her husband's situation was its own unique thing (and different from my wife's situation), that strange, disorienting mix on a day-to-day basis of the very practical and very real with the "this is not happening ... this is bizarre and totally weird" was incredibly familiar to me.
So, I suspect that this might be a rather odd book for people who've never been through it, but if you're open to it and understand that in many cases this is a book about "feel" instead of "show versus tell", it's a very good read.
The style was quite different. While there was plenty of factual biography and descriptions of day-to-day life, the book was written in a style that I'd call free verse poetry. This gives it a hard-to-pin down, almost dreamy, feel to everything.
What may be hard for readers who haven't gone through this is that that is a very good representation of what it feels like to go through that as a spouse. Although her husband's situation was its own unique thing (and different from my wife's situation), that strange, disorienting mix on a day-to-day basis of the very practical and very real with the "this is not happening ... this is bizarre and totally weird" was incredibly familiar to me.
So, I suspect that this might be a rather odd book for people who've never been through it, but if you're open to it and understand that in many cases this is a book about "feel" instead of "show versus tell", it's a very good read.
August 26, 2014
This is an awesome but privileged book. Awesome in the sense that Courts chooses to expose herself and her family in their most intimate dance with death. She accomplishes this both passionately and dispassionately and with an artist's eye for detail colours it all in gloriously making a bravura collage of a rather mundane tale of suffering: man gets brain tumour is temporarily assuaged by chemotherapy is allowed access to Avastin presumably because of who he is and dies anyway with a bulbous growth on his head. He writes about it,she writes about it and somehow it becomes meaningful. In the Trinity Hospice in Clapham Common death becomes an event, an installation. one cannot help but wonder how other persons with less privileged circumstances would deal with the virulence of a tumour like this and the impact it would have on personal finances. This apart it is a marvellously visceral read. Pain excruiated into an art form shaped given meaning where all is random. Highly recommended
May 26, 2015
Almost totally cliche free book about watching a loved one die, incredible.
Read
March 5, 2018DNF-ed this one as it just wasn't my kind of read sadly.
January 15, 2015
Marion Coutts's memoir about her husband's diagnosis, treatment and eventual death from, a brain tumour is an incredibly accomplished book. The prose is dense, poetic, sometimes hard and often requires a second reading.
Did I like it? I'm not sure whether I did, in all honesty. But I'm glad I read it. So, I'm not going to rate this book on my enjoyment of it, because to enjoy this book I think would be the wrong word. It is an important book - it tells it how it is, from the partner's point of view, with all the raw pain, anger, frustration, hatred, love, fear and, on occasions, barely concealed violence.
What comes across, above all, is Marion Coutts's fierce protective love for her husband. She is prepared to fight the authorities all the way for the best care for her husband. They are a very tight-knit and loving family and it makes it all the more poignant that their little boy, Ev, lost his father at such a young age - as he grows up he will barely remember him away from the photos and written memories.
I am now banning myself from reading any more books about cancer. They are emotionally draining - I've read three in the last two months and that's quite enough for now.
Did I like it? I'm not sure whether I did, in all honesty. But I'm glad I read it. So, I'm not going to rate this book on my enjoyment of it, because to enjoy this book I think would be the wrong word. It is an important book - it tells it how it is, from the partner's point of view, with all the raw pain, anger, frustration, hatred, love, fear and, on occasions, barely concealed violence.
What comes across, above all, is Marion Coutts's fierce protective love for her husband. She is prepared to fight the authorities all the way for the best care for her husband. They are a very tight-knit and loving family and it makes it all the more poignant that their little boy, Ev, lost his father at such a young age - as he grows up he will barely remember him away from the photos and written memories.
I am now banning myself from reading any more books about cancer. They are emotionally draining - I've read three in the last two months and that's quite enough for now.
June 11, 2020
I admire the story, but didn't enjoy the style of writing.
September 26, 2017
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts was my book of the year in 2015. Never have I read an illness narrative which is so poignant, nor a reflection on life which sings with such beauty and sadness. A recent presentation which I had to give on the book is below.
Marion Coutts’ The Iceberg presents not just one story – that of her husband Tom Lubbock’s gradual decline after being diagnosed with a brain tumour in September 2008 – but three; her own, Tom’s, and their young son Ev’s. She writes, ‘We will all be changed by this. He [Ev] the most’.
Tom’s trip to the hospital, which led to his diagnosis, was brought on by a seizure suffered whilst at a friend’s; this was the trigger, the catalyst, for the next two and a bit years, dying, as he did, on the 9th of January 2011. The way in which Tom relays the news of his cancer to Coutts is incredibly matter of fact: ‘Tom stops me. He says he has had a phone call. He has a brain tumour. It is very likely malignant’. This discovery comes on an already momentous day for the couple – that of Ev’s first day away from them at the childminder’s. Initially, she is distraught, breaking down in tears, but she does show strength of character from the outset, acting in what she sees as her familial duty. She realises that she has to adopt the position of proverbial rock for both her husband and son: ‘Right from the start see how I set myself up. Let us see how this thing goes’.
The book was a pre-planned project of sorts. As soon as Coutts realises that something is drastically wrong with her husband, and is faced with his mortality – and, indirectly, her own – she consciously thinks about documenting the process. She opens The Iceberg with the following: ‘A book about the future must be written in advance. Later I won’t have the energy to speak. So I will do it now’. There is no doubt that Tom’s decline will be draining for all involved, and she is already steeling herself for the rocky road ahead. The Iceberg is as much a historical document for she and her son to gain solace from, as it is a manual for those who are watching the suffering of a loved one to live by.
Throughout, the loss of speech and endless rounds of chemotherapy are not happening directly to Coutts; she is a bystander in proceedings – Tom’s crutch, as it were. Throughout, she is remarkably understanding and empathetic, continually thinking of the ways in which certain daily processes will affect Tom, and how she can better his quality of life. This applies both to the daily routine at home, and Tom’s medical care: ‘Normality is gifted in the form of steroids, 2mg daily, and immediately he tightens his grip on language and on the connection of meaning to word’. She tries to maintain a manageable balance between their old, ordinary family life, and the situation which they have been forced into; they still see friends, and go on walks, for instance, which perpetuates a sense of normalcy in the face of the unknown. She is essentially a mediator in a time of what could easily descend into panic. ‘On hearing the news, our instinct is to tell it’, she says. There is rarely any deception here, and the need to be honest – both with one another, and with others who matter to the couple – is paramount.
Coutts’ is a diachronic account; there is historical reach, and a chronological structure. The form which she has chosen to use is not so much a diary format, as an almost academic way of breaking up separate scenes. She deals with one day at a time, but the ‘1.1’ and ‘1.2’ structure does take an element of reality away from the whole. Whilst we do not know the exact dates in which the written accounts took place, the whole is still achingly personal. There is hope here; very early on in the book, she writes: ‘… we carry on in many ways as before but crosswise to what might be expected, we are not plunged into night’.
The couple do, however, become less able to discuss what the future – or lack thereof – holds for them, and for Ev. On page 163, Coutts explains that ‘… there is the Talking Issue, meaning talking about what is going on, articulating the disaster that coagulates around us. Tom promised a while back to begin a conversation with Ev and he has not done this’. How does one communicate to a toddler that soon his beloved father will no longer be in his life? Words, however, still have the power to carry them through their ordeal. Whilst undergoing chemotherapy, Coutts describes the way in which she tenderly whispers poetry ‘with my mouth close to Tom’s ear’ (p168).
The Iceberg is a beautiful, brave, and heartfelt account of a newly-discovered mortality, which shows how one can make every single second in life count for something. Love is at the forefront of every entry, and every decision which the couple make.
Marion Coutts’ The Iceberg presents not just one story – that of her husband Tom Lubbock’s gradual decline after being diagnosed with a brain tumour in September 2008 – but three; her own, Tom’s, and their young son Ev’s. She writes, ‘We will all be changed by this. He [Ev] the most’.
Tom’s trip to the hospital, which led to his diagnosis, was brought on by a seizure suffered whilst at a friend’s; this was the trigger, the catalyst, for the next two and a bit years, dying, as he did, on the 9th of January 2011. The way in which Tom relays the news of his cancer to Coutts is incredibly matter of fact: ‘Tom stops me. He says he has had a phone call. He has a brain tumour. It is very likely malignant’. This discovery comes on an already momentous day for the couple – that of Ev’s first day away from them at the childminder’s. Initially, she is distraught, breaking down in tears, but she does show strength of character from the outset, acting in what she sees as her familial duty. She realises that she has to adopt the position of proverbial rock for both her husband and son: ‘Right from the start see how I set myself up. Let us see how this thing goes’.
The book was a pre-planned project of sorts. As soon as Coutts realises that something is drastically wrong with her husband, and is faced with his mortality – and, indirectly, her own – she consciously thinks about documenting the process. She opens The Iceberg with the following: ‘A book about the future must be written in advance. Later I won’t have the energy to speak. So I will do it now’. There is no doubt that Tom’s decline will be draining for all involved, and she is already steeling herself for the rocky road ahead. The Iceberg is as much a historical document for she and her son to gain solace from, as it is a manual for those who are watching the suffering of a loved one to live by.
Throughout, the loss of speech and endless rounds of chemotherapy are not happening directly to Coutts; she is a bystander in proceedings – Tom’s crutch, as it were. Throughout, she is remarkably understanding and empathetic, continually thinking of the ways in which certain daily processes will affect Tom, and how she can better his quality of life. This applies both to the daily routine at home, and Tom’s medical care: ‘Normality is gifted in the form of steroids, 2mg daily, and immediately he tightens his grip on language and on the connection of meaning to word’. She tries to maintain a manageable balance between their old, ordinary family life, and the situation which they have been forced into; they still see friends, and go on walks, for instance, which perpetuates a sense of normalcy in the face of the unknown. She is essentially a mediator in a time of what could easily descend into panic. ‘On hearing the news, our instinct is to tell it’, she says. There is rarely any deception here, and the need to be honest – both with one another, and with others who matter to the couple – is paramount.
Coutts’ is a diachronic account; there is historical reach, and a chronological structure. The form which she has chosen to use is not so much a diary format, as an almost academic way of breaking up separate scenes. She deals with one day at a time, but the ‘1.1’ and ‘1.2’ structure does take an element of reality away from the whole. Whilst we do not know the exact dates in which the written accounts took place, the whole is still achingly personal. There is hope here; very early on in the book, she writes: ‘… we carry on in many ways as before but crosswise to what might be expected, we are not plunged into night’.
The couple do, however, become less able to discuss what the future – or lack thereof – holds for them, and for Ev. On page 163, Coutts explains that ‘… there is the Talking Issue, meaning talking about what is going on, articulating the disaster that coagulates around us. Tom promised a while back to begin a conversation with Ev and he has not done this’. How does one communicate to a toddler that soon his beloved father will no longer be in his life? Words, however, still have the power to carry them through their ordeal. Whilst undergoing chemotherapy, Coutts describes the way in which she tenderly whispers poetry ‘with my mouth close to Tom’s ear’ (p168).
The Iceberg is a beautiful, brave, and heartfelt account of a newly-discovered mortality, which shows how one can make every single second in life count for something. Love is at the forefront of every entry, and every decision which the couple make.
January 25, 2020
I read this book (which was just waiting on my Kindle for such a moment) for the Popsugar Challenge 2020 prompt of "a book with an upside down image on the cover". What a silly reason to read such a profound book! The book is the memoir of a couple (with a toddler son) coping with the husband's diagnosis, treatment, and eventual death from a brain tumor. The way it is written is really sublime, and heartbreaking at the same time. Her husband was a writer (an art critic) and she an artist, and throughout the book you could see how language was such an important part of their lives. So how ironic that the tumor was in the area which affects speech! It was humbling to watch him continue to write with his wife and other friends helping him find the words he had lost. And her continued efforts to parse out his meanings when he had lost so many words was heroic. No, she didn't always have the best reactions to the situation (who does?), but the narration was raw and honest and again, words were so important. The book broke my heart of course, but it was worth it.
August 10, 2024
Brutally honest. Poetic. Difficult to read.
The book is not long, but it took me months to complete because I simply could not face it. The author did not have that luxury.
One of the most personal and honest (the author is neither hero nor martyr…there is no evil nor beauty in the suffering…it simply is) memoirs I have ever read. The author invites us into her most private thoughts…if we have a portion of her strength and courage to be there.
The book profoundly affected me, and there were more than a few moments when I openly wept. Because the pain simply is with no drama…no accoutrements. Raw. And therefore powerful.
I have taken to using book quotes/highlights in my “reviews” along with my thoughts and emotions as I read those words for the first time. Helps me remember not just what I read, but how I felt as I read it. As I have grown older that has become more important to me. The number of quotes in a “review” is an excellent gauge of how I felt towards the book. Almost this entire book is highlighted. I may eventually…or I may not…record those quotes here. A few already…
We can lose people long before they die.
The Soundtrack
Hold On (Live)
For this is gonna hurt like hell…
February 13, 2016
How to do credit to this great book?
Marion may be a visual artist, and there's lots about looking and seeing in this book.
But she's a very clever writer too. Letting us into the decay of words in her husband, just at the same time as her son is learning to talk. Showing all the different levels of loss and love and life that go on, and keep going on for her family - as for all of us, even if in a less acute way. Showing us the gains as well as the losses: how many couples are as close as Marion and Tom? How many couples give so much, and so deeply to each other?
I especially appreciated her letting us into her adult tantrums, as well as her sons. I want to underline here the sensible-ness of childrens' and adults' tantrums. Surely Marion needed all the support of friends just as much as her husband - even if in different ways?
This book resonated with me hugely. About the death of my father - even though he never lost his words to anything like the same extent as Tom. And about my own word-finding difficulties, with my multiple sclerosis. These don't show on the tests - I still come out as well above average. But that's like saying Mont Blanc is just as much a mountain as Everest. I can definitely feel the difference. And I really don't like it.
Marion may be a visual artist, and there's lots about looking and seeing in this book.
But she's a very clever writer too. Letting us into the decay of words in her husband, just at the same time as her son is learning to talk. Showing all the different levels of loss and love and life that go on, and keep going on for her family - as for all of us, even if in a less acute way. Showing us the gains as well as the losses: how many couples are as close as Marion and Tom? How many couples give so much, and so deeply to each other?
I especially appreciated her letting us into her adult tantrums, as well as her sons. I want to underline here the sensible-ness of childrens' and adults' tantrums. Surely Marion needed all the support of friends just as much as her husband - even if in different ways?
This book resonated with me hugely. About the death of my father - even though he never lost his words to anything like the same extent as Tom. And about my own word-finding difficulties, with my multiple sclerosis. These don't show on the tests - I still come out as well above average. But that's like saying Mont Blanc is just as much a mountain as Everest. I can definitely feel the difference. And I really don't like it.
October 11, 2015
Haunting. Poetic. Brilliant. An artistic retelling of love and incomprehensible loss. Lyrical, with word pictures that make you catch your breath. Not something you're happy about reading, but something you're definitely happy you read.
March 25, 2020
Imagina que tienes una criatura de año y medio. Imagina lo reciente que está ese momento en el que le viste correr, más bien tambalearse, cual pato mareado por el pasillo de la casa, tartamudeando ma-ma-ma-ma mientras te preguntas si es a ti a quien llama.
🥀
Imagina que ya, con dieciocho meses, dice mamá perfectamente. Y papá. Y agua y papel y pan y cama. Que empieza ya a construir sus primeras frases que sólo tú y su pareja, quizás su abuela también, expertos lingüistas improvisados, sabéis interpretar. Imagina que en esa tarea de desentrañar fonemas, escoger palabras, pelearse con la combinación imposible de vocales y consonantes. conectar cerebro con boca, ojos con cerebro, manos con piernas, tú le estás acompañando, agobiada a ratos, impresionada otros.
🥀
E imagina que precisamente en ese momento en el que tu criatura crece y esa área del lenguaje del tamaño de un guisante comienza a desarrollarse, a tu pareja le detectan un tumor en esa misma área. Tu criatura hacia arriba, sube y sube; tu pareja in decrescendo, baja y baja. Y tú en el medio, intentando llegar a todo sin llegar a nada.
Nosotras lo imaginamos.
🥀
Pd: hay una pega en el libro, sus erratas. Más numerosas de lo que una buena edición habría deseado. Una pena que un libro tan hermoso pueda verse afeado por errores de forma.
Marion Cutts estuvo ahí.
#MarionCoutts #ElIceberg #Escribirparasanar #MaternidadesLit #LibrosDuelo
🥀
Imagina que ya, con dieciocho meses, dice mamá perfectamente. Y papá. Y agua y papel y pan y cama. Que empieza ya a construir sus primeras frases que sólo tú y su pareja, quizás su abuela también, expertos lingüistas improvisados, sabéis interpretar. Imagina que en esa tarea de desentrañar fonemas, escoger palabras, pelearse con la combinación imposible de vocales y consonantes. conectar cerebro con boca, ojos con cerebro, manos con piernas, tú le estás acompañando, agobiada a ratos, impresionada otros.
🥀
E imagina que precisamente en ese momento en el que tu criatura crece y esa área del lenguaje del tamaño de un guisante comienza a desarrollarse, a tu pareja le detectan un tumor en esa misma área. Tu criatura hacia arriba, sube y sube; tu pareja in decrescendo, baja y baja. Y tú en el medio, intentando llegar a todo sin llegar a nada.
Nosotras lo imaginamos.
🥀
Pd: hay una pega en el libro, sus erratas. Más numerosas de lo que una buena edición habría deseado. Una pena que un libro tan hermoso pueda verse afeado por errores de forma.
Marion Cutts estuvo ahí.
#MarionCoutts #ElIceberg #Escribirparasanar #MaternidadesLit #LibrosDuelo
February 16, 2019
I was honored to have the opportunity to read this book. Taking a subject many authors have wrestled with the author managed to forge an entirely new path. In part it was the author’s unique ability to impart a lot of sensory detail while still moving the narrative forward; It was almost a visual field made text as if words were color and shape coming into focus in an improvisational way to make a whole. The subject was shown and not told. Given that the subject was the author’s husband’s struggle with brain cancer and ultimately his death, to be brought into the author’s experience so intimately was revelatory, painful and inspirational. We often talk about “being with suffering” but individual suffering is painted usually with a broad stroke in literature, I think it is hard to get close with precision while still keeping the reader intimately involved & not distracted by broader philosophical themes, theories about grief or the skill of the writer themselves. This book is relentless in its description of suffering and its ability to illustrate that by being with our suffering wholly and without averting our gaze, peace and presence in dire situations is possible.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2015
What is it to be a witness? What is it to look, and not look away?
Marion Coutts is witness for her husband. Witness to Tom Lubbock's terminal illness, but also his life, joys and work, in the time between diagnosis and hospice. There is a remarkable lack of self pity and plenty of honest observation in the recounting of their family life together, the three of them together.
It still feels, days after reading it, incredible how Marion Coutts opens up and lets strangers into the book and right up against the action, it feels like we are right there. How could she bear to let us so close? But there is power in the book because she has done that. Exquisitely beautiful.
Marion Coutts is witness for her husband. Witness to Tom Lubbock's terminal illness, but also his life, joys and work, in the time between diagnosis and hospice. There is a remarkable lack of self pity and plenty of honest observation in the recounting of their family life together, the three of them together.
It still feels, days after reading it, incredible how Marion Coutts opens up and lets strangers into the book and right up against the action, it feels like we are right there. How could she bear to let us so close? But there is power in the book because she has done that. Exquisitely beautiful.
January 15, 2016
This is an extraordinary memoir. The story is moving, as a memoir about your husband dying from brain cancer should be, but it is the writing and the poetic way the author tells of her family's experience that make this memoir very special. Highly recommended.
February 22, 2015
Beyond beautiful !
June 24, 2015
beautifully written and absolutely heartbreaking
August 15, 2016
Unbelievably heart-rending. The writing is so beyond phenomenal, the story is wrenching, I am changed after reading this book.
July 21, 2020
"Hay libros difíciles de clasificar. En este caso, no nos encontramos ante una autobiografía, tampoco un diario y, desde luego, no ante una novela; decir que es un ensayo quizás sería precipitado.
Volvamos al inicio: a Tom Lubbok, marido de la autora, le diagnostican un tumor cerebral alojado en el área del lenguaje y comienzan un periodo de tratamientos y nuevas rutinas que, sin embargo, no lograrán curar el cáncer. Un detalle: Tom Lubbok era crítico de arte, y parte de su trabajo pasaba por la redacción de libros y artículos. El lenguaje, por tanto, era parte de su oficio.
En un escenario del que también es partícipe el hijo pequeño de la pareja, asistimos a los últimos meses que pasan juntos, a cómo generan nuevos códigos ante el desgaste paulatino del lenguaje de Lubbok, de las idas y venidas entre el optimismo y el desconsuelo. La cotidaneidad en la que integran esta nueva variable en sus vidas es uno de los grandes ejes del libro, un rasgo que como lectores no es fácil de encontrar. Con un lenguaje transparente y sencillo, la autora consigue un texto de asombrosa profundidad y, sin caer ni un momento en el dramatismo o en la autocompasión, crea un texto conmovedor que traza la crónica de una enfermedad." Daniel Caballero
Volvamos al inicio: a Tom Lubbok, marido de la autora, le diagnostican un tumor cerebral alojado en el área del lenguaje y comienzan un periodo de tratamientos y nuevas rutinas que, sin embargo, no lograrán curar el cáncer. Un detalle: Tom Lubbok era crítico de arte, y parte de su trabajo pasaba por la redacción de libros y artículos. El lenguaje, por tanto, era parte de su oficio.
En un escenario del que también es partícipe el hijo pequeño de la pareja, asistimos a los últimos meses que pasan juntos, a cómo generan nuevos códigos ante el desgaste paulatino del lenguaje de Lubbok, de las idas y venidas entre el optimismo y el desconsuelo. La cotidaneidad en la que integran esta nueva variable en sus vidas es uno de los grandes ejes del libro, un rasgo que como lectores no es fácil de encontrar. Con un lenguaje transparente y sencillo, la autora consigue un texto de asombrosa profundidad y, sin caer ni un momento en el dramatismo o en la autocompasión, crea un texto conmovedor que traza la crónica de una enfermedad." Daniel Caballero
April 7, 2024
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts is a compelling memoir of the two years following her husband's diagnosis of a cancerous brain tumor until his death two years later. It is both heartbreaking and uplifting, taking the reader through the ups and downs of a terminal illness in a manner that is both poetic and down-to-earth in its honesty. Having lived through the loss of a spouse through cancer, I could identify with the many emotions experienced each day, from the highs of a simple touch to the lows of being unable to communicate. Coutts is painfully honest, but at the same time shows the beauty of love, family, friends, and hope. She expresses her frustrations, her disappointments, her joys and her determination. It is beautifully written and deeply moving and I recommend it for anyone who has had to experience the fatal illness of a loved one, who is living through it now, or who is simply human.
August 11, 2018
** Books 112 - 2018 **
This books to accomplish Tsundoku Books Challenge 2018
2,8 of 5 stars!
I can't connect myself into the author what she wanna say about in this books. Even near of the death of Tom, her husband i can't feel any sadness of it. I dunno why is it because her writing style or i wanna read her more explanation and description when her husband is passed away but unfortunately i didn't found one in this books.
Seriously i prefer read when the breath becomes air than this pieces >__<
Thankyou Big Bad Wolf 2018!
This books to accomplish Tsundoku Books Challenge 2018
2,8 of 5 stars!
I can't connect myself into the author what she wanna say about in this books. Even near of the death of Tom, her husband i can't feel any sadness of it. I dunno why is it because her writing style or i wanna read her more explanation and description when her husband is passed away but unfortunately i didn't found one in this books.
Seriously i prefer read when the breath becomes air than this pieces >__<
Thankyou Big Bad Wolf 2018!
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