Good Grief: A self-help guide to recovery after death, and memoir about the covid 19 pandemic and loss of gang of four member Andy Gill, by an award-winning author

by Catherine Mayer, Anne Mayer Bird

Mother and daughter Anne Mayer Bird and Catherine Mayer were widowed within 41 days of each other on the eve of the pandemic, then locked down alone. Their profound isolation was broken just once a week, when Catherine visited Anne to care for her, at distance and in a mask. Together they found ways to navigate their loss and the startling questions and challenges that confronted them.

In this memoir, Catherine also investigates the possibility that her husband, renowned musician Andy Gill, contracted Covid-19 when his band, Gang of Four, toured China in late 2019. Her main focus, however, is not on death, but on life and love. This is a captivating account of lives well lived, moving and spiked with black humour. It is interwoven with letters Anne wrote to her husband John to tell him of the astonishing and heartrending events since his death and her small triumphs in living independently.

In sharing their insights and experiences, Catherine and Anne aim to help those who have lost or will lose people or who wish to know how best to support others in such circumstances. They also celebrate love—for John and Andy and each other.

Genres: Nonfiction, Grief, Self Help, Biography

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 10, 2020

Reviews

[Jay Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

Autobiographical rather than advice or guidance for those coping with grief.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone else said, the title is misleading as it is not a self-help book, unless you say it helped the author by writing it. It is really a memoir of life after two deaths. N.b. My actual copy is entitled ‘ GOOD GRIEF: Embracing life at a time of death’ and not the GoodRead one above. If it had been the latter, I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book.

As I had never heard of Andy Gill and his band before, (Gang of Four meaning the Chinese Communist Party officials from 1966 etc. to me) a lot of the book was wasted on me because his wife assumed you knew more than I did. As I mentioned, the title was different from the GoodReads one too so I wouldn’t have known it was about him. This raises some interesting questions in the GoodReads world: is it fair to rate a book downwards because the author makes assumptions about your knowledge and is it also fair to downgrade because it’s of its time? In the first case, I’m saying no; in the second, I’m also saying no. The latter refers to Covid in the book, which is three years ago. Perhaps I should have read this sooner because I found the sections on it irrelevant now.
Anyway, I learnt little that I didn’t know before apart from stuff about Andy. It was interesting though what the author said about what you shouldn’t do post death, which I disagreed with E.g. don’t clear the clothes out immediately, yet this is definitely something I would do as I’m not sentimental about possessions, I’m into death clearing instead. I think this helped to make me find the book not as good as expected.

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very readable exploration of grief in the time of COVID. Two widows, mother and daughter, who lost their husbands about a month apart, explore the experience of losing a much loved life partner. There is the open question of whether the deaths were hastened by COVID, and an examination of when COVID first became apparent.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Grief is more than the price of love. It is love. We must learn not just to live with it, but to make it welcome.’

After losing my Grampy, Dad and 38yr old Cousin (all on my fathers side of the family) durning the pandemic grief has hit me over and over.

Grieving durning Covid-19 lockdowns has been extremely difficult. The mother and daughter in the book both experienced devastating losses durning the pandemic as well. It was helpful to hear their experiences and how they are coping with the grief.

As a society we don’t talk about or prepare for death nearly enough yet it happens to all of us.

Good Grief is an important book on a very hard yet significant subject. The loss of someone we loved and the grief associated changes our lives forever.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent and hit very close to home. My husband died two days after hers last February, plus she had lost her stepfather a month earlier. She and her mother faced the usual post-mortem red tape (she calls it dread tape) and other chores (sadmin) as I did, but then to be slammed with the Covid lockdown at a time when you are already isolated is really crushing. Their story is told through narration and a series of letters they wrote to their husbands trying to describe how the world had changed so suddenly.

[Lauren Geier · Rating 4 out of 5]

When my Dad died several years ago, someone said “He is so missed, because he was so loved.” This has stuck with me and become a bit of a mantra of sorts. Perhaps it resonated because it reminds me of a line from a song by his beloved Beatles, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

“Good Grief” is a new release written by mother-daughter, Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird who were both widowed early in the pandemic. While isolated by grief and the lockdown, they found comfort and healing through weekly contacts with one another. You might recognize Catherine Mayer’s voice is full of humor, honesty, and accessible emotion.

I found this book to be profoundly comforting, uncomfortable, and thought provoking, as someone continuing to navigate a world without my Dad and as a mental health professional. While the authors write about their experiences losing their husbands amidst the pandemic, the takeaways can certainly be generalized for anyone experiencing loss. I love the stated intention:

As always, I’m grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review. The words and opinions are all my own.

[Angela Lutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book popped into my life right at an opportune moment. I saw it and sent it to my mother as a gift. I, like Catherine, am my mothers youngest daughter. My father and her partner for over 60 years passed away on a cold February Morning in the middle of a New England Winter. Although the cause of my fathers death was listed as Covid, that was just what he got from all the cancer that had his body. The man had not eaten in months and was beyond thin. The book proved to be what my mother was looking for in a book about grief; real, visceral, and powerful. To explain that we don’t bother to plan for death, although I do remember that my mohter had planned for death, they had everything all planned out. They did that so that my two older sisters and myself could have some respite from pain as we planned for their departures. My mothers death will not happen for sometime, though it is inevitable. She won’t live forever. I wasn’t going to read the book, however, my Mom recommended the book to me. It was very good and in some parts very funny. I hightly recommend this book for anyone who has suffered a loss for any reason.

[Helen Homer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book, told in two ways by two women - mother and daughter who became widows almost at the same time just before the start of the covid pandemic. Catherine's chapters mix emotion and memories with lots of practical aspects of dealing with death, alongside political questions around health care, covid response and many other issues. Anne's chapters are each in the form of letters written to her deceased husband with a lot of retelling of memories and sharing her current experiences. Both stories are different but they are woven together through their timelines.
There is a lot of discussion of covid and the pandemic and times when the book felt much more like this was the topic rather than bereavement (although the two obviously go hand in hand).
A big focus of the book I encouraging people to talk about death more openly, something I wholeheartedly support. It talks about the challenges of dying without a will, or the confusion of decisions for your loved ones if you have not spoken to them about your wishes at end of life and after death. In that I think the book was great.

[Naomi Parry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, honest book about death and loss and Covid-19. It's a terrible title really, as it's not a self-help guide and contains no toxic positivity or romance about the lessons we learn when we lose the centre of our world. Title aside, I found it enormously helpful as I dealt with the death of my husband during the pandemic. It consoled me to read Mayer and her mother describing the experience of dealing with the unexpected deaths of their husbands, during all the complications and isolation of the pandemic, and finding grace and humour, along with well-directed anger. I have embraced Mayer's term 'the lovely dead', for the way those we have lost are all around us, as well as 'sadmin' and 'dread tape' for all the interminable work of finalising someone's estate. I don't know how Mayer gained the strength to write this just seven months after losing her Andy, but I'm so pleased she did.

[Alistair Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catherine Mayer was married to Andy Gill of the post-punk band Gang Of Four, which is what first drew me to this book. Andy passed away within a few weeks of the death of Catherine's step father John Bird. Catherine describes how she and her mother Anne Mayer Bird dealt with their loss during the early stages of Covid lockdown; one of Anne's coping mechanisms is to write letters to John after his passing, which are included in the book at the end of each chapter.

Catherine comes to the conclusion that Andy could have been infected by Covid during a tour of China in late 2019 which if correct would mean the epidemic started much earlier than reported.

This was a book I literally could not put down and I finished it in admiration for both these remarkable women. As the subtitle says 'Embracing life at a time of death.'

[Natalie Liddle · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are parts of this book that are lovely and had me in tears but largely due to grief not the book per se.
For me personally it was too political and personally biased. I didn’t want the authors political views on Covid or the government and I didn’t always like the tone of writing.
I am not sure this is going to provide the comfort you would expect but I hope that it does for others more than it did me.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve come across a book that mirrors my own journey through grief as this. (Although before Covid thankfully!)

Even down to the letters Anne wrote to her Husband, I wrote to my Mum regularly. It captures those mixed emotions so perfectly.

A little political at points and I have no clue who her husband was so that was a little lost on me unfortunately.

[Margi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit surprised

I have been drawn to books about widowhood since my husband passed away in March of 2018. Almost always, they mirror what I’m going through. This book, though, surprised me in other ways, not all of them to my liking, but maybe that won’t be true for you.

[Tonya Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the interplay between the writing styles and approaches to grief both mother and daughter take and the reflection on early Covid times. The loved ones lost brought to life by the women they leave behind.

[Ms D · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t like this book - it didn’t offer any guidance in grief, it just detailed the sad deaths of two men just before Covid. I couldn’t relate in any way to the two protagonists and found it rather self indulgent and even pompous in its name dropping.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Open, honest, powerful and astute.
📚💖📚

[Jo Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful and raw.

[Ingibjorg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written book on a topic hardly ever discussed. It’s honesty and openness is so powerful. And - it leaves you full of hope.
Absolutely recommend it.

[Alyson Edenborough]

Sad and honest, but not a great book imho.

[Julie-Anne Borgias · Rating 4 out of 5]

very much their personal lived experience but some useful guidance given from this at the end..audiobook has bonus track from Andy at end which was touching

[TheModestMillennial · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bitter diatribe positioned as a memoir masked as a self-help aid to grieving individuals

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing lost my interest the minute I read that they obeyed the covid rules during their time of grief. As if grief isn’t bad enough, they actually self isolated and abstained from hugs. I couldn't really get past that to be honest. The writers seemed too mainstream for me.

[Makayla H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Very insightfull

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good in parts but also I disagreed with some of the 'dos and don'ts' at the end. For example she found it comforting when other people told her how much they missed AG - personally I would like people to grieve outwards for Tim to someone else who isn't me! Helpful on the 'sadmin' and other concepts to do with the shitwork of it all.

[Roisin Tunney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely depiction of experiencing death during COVID whilst grieving normality. Loved inputs from author and her Mum, made me feel sane.

Big recommend for anyone that works in the community or personally knows anyone who grieves 🫡