Book Reviews: Relative Grief

Relative Grief
Clare Jenkins and Judy Merry, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN 1843102579, £12.95

STAR RATING: 4/5

This book shows there are no rules or set ways of behaving when it
comes to loss, writes Amy Leadbeater. It
also highlights some recognisable traits in the way people
react.

Ordinary people simply give an account of their loss. These are
divided into sections to provide differing perspectives on grief.
The direct transcripts are powerful and moving, you can really hear
people’s voices. One woman says of her dead husband: “We were like
two of a kind. I talk to him. He’s anywhere and everywhere”.

The bereaved talk of their pain and while many have some hope,
others are just carrying on the best they can.

Jenkins and Merry have given us an invaluable insight into what
other people go through when they grieve and as Margaret Rowe
writes in the foreword: “No text book can encompass what each
individual endures.”

Amy Leadbeater is a social worker, Norfolk and Norwich
University Hospital