Coda

The Smoking Diaries #4

by Simon Gray

From heartbreaking reflections on his own mortality to characteristically outrageous asides—"everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who was given six months to live, and here they are, only just dead, eight years later or, in exceptional cases, here they still are, eating oysters and boring the shit out of people"—Gray's self-proclaimed "last written words on the subject of myself" records his extraordinary emotional journey. Darkly comic depictions of the medical team are set against joyful accounts of sunlit days with this beloved wife, Victoria, in Crete and a beautiful early summer in Suffolk. Woven into the narrative are arguments with himself, "Dialogue between a Thicko and a Sicko," a shameful childhood memory, and a masterfully tense "distraction," written in real time while waiting for his final prognosis—and smoking one last cigarette. Written with exceptional candor and a poignant reluctance to leave this world behind, Coda is painful and beautiful.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE (21 October 1936 – 7 August 2008) was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to 5 published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Penelope · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the subject of dying can be uplifting and humorous and interesting this book certainly was all of that. Read by the author with wonderful expression and feeling. NFN 2023.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4:
The playwright and diarist's frank, moving and often painfully funny account of coming to terms with his terminal cancer

[Bobbie Darbyshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

In ‘Coda’ Simon Gray diarises the diagnosis and treatment of his terminal lung cancer, including the black moments of anger, shame, terror, makes me laugh out loud at least three times and lifts my mood greatly. Little need to add to what I posted last December about ‘The Last Cigarette’. Here it is again.
"A delicious treat to be once again in the self-deprecatingly witty hands of Simon Gray’s stream-of-consciousness autobiographical persona. Sad too, as I’ve now only one more to go – Coda – before the cigarettes finally claim him for the smoking room situated somewhere between heaven and the other place, which is crowded with all the most interesting and lovable people. Reading this just after Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, I realised (a) just what a clever craftsman Simon Gray is, and (b) what a debt modern writers owe to Virginia."

[Alex Sarll]

In which a cancer diagnosis finds the master of digression gurgling inexorably towards the plughole of that final full stop. He talks about death concentrating the mind; and then five pages from the end of his last book, he's halfway through a potted biography of Stefan Zweig which will never see completion. Throughout he remains as peevish, scared and voyeuristic - which is to say, human - as in the three previous, pre-diagnosis volumes of Smoking Diaries, and thank heavens for that, though it is a slightly awkward book at which to be seen laughing out loud on public transport.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Gray wrote this three months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. It is stream of consciousness musing on what it is like to have a death sentence and an appreciation of some of the things he enjoys about life. He holidays with his wife in Crete and takes us into the interviews with doctors and into hospital for surgery. His doctors achieve a good result by the end of the book but he is warned that the cancer is still there and we know he is to die in a little over twelve months time so there is that element of poignancy.

I had never come across his writing before and had no particular knowledge or affection for him. I don't want anyone to die and was pleased when he emerged with a good (if temporarily good) result. But I didn't warm to him or to his writing. There are moments of humour and insight but also too much incidental musing of no particular point or interest.

[Gail Kennon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gray is an encouraging and entertaining guide to his life after receiving his diagnosis of lung cancer.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

While one has to admire someone who has the courage to record his experiences and feelings after having received confirmation that his days are numbered, the result is inevitably self-centered. The main other character, his wife Victoria, does not come to life other than as an invaluable support to Gray himself. While the writing is always lively and often sardonic, the subject of the writer's last days is inevitably morbid.

[Mehmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not familiar with Simon Gray's work, written or on the stage and I came across a review for this book in a paper, something must have struck me as I kept the torn review for some tine before actually buying and reading the book.
Given the subject matter, of his diagnosis, coming to terms with his illness and ... I expected a more emotional roller coaster and instead found a very easy to read, honest, self critical book.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

sadly, his last book. His journey from learning that he has terminal lung cancer to the end is filled with contemplation, sadness and humour.

[Granny Swithins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir, covering the time of his cancer diagnosis.

Beautifully written, tender and funny.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are aspect of this that needed editing but I guess there wasn't time. Though it ends on a relatively upbeat note the outcome, of course, is unbearably sad.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

The heartbreaking pre-postscript of Gray's diaries taking the reader, with pathos and mordant humour, through the years from his diagnosis of cancer

[Giskin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wry look at cancer diagnosis by this witty playwright. He gives nicknames to his various doctors, including 'Mummy's Boy' and 'The Chipmunk of Doom'.