The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss

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Relating all this, Coles dredges up a memory of the bizarre and unprompted thought that skipped through his mind as he bent to kiss David’s body one last time. “The cliché says, oh, they’re going to be icy cold. But they’re not, they’re room temperature actually; they’re just cooler than you would expect them to be. And I remember kissing David and thinking, ‘Ooh. He’s chambré.’ Which, um, is some sort of word from a sommelier’s lexicon. I mean! What a peculiar thing to say about your just-departed partner. But I think it was the fact of Dead David. I could only glance at that fact. It was too much.” Bold, intimate writing . . . THE MADNESS OF GRIEF is not a manual for the bereaved, but as a vivid account of how it feels when the world suddenly falls away, it performs another kind of service— THE SUNDAY TIMES

Such a moving, tough, funny, raw, honest read. The beautiful articulation of Richard's grief will be a comfort to so many— MATT HAIG If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, discussions about the afterlife, or being called out to perform the last rites, death is part of the Reverend Richard Coles's life and work. But when his partner the Reverend David Coles died, much about death took Coles by surprise. However, what really kept me reading was the way that the characters responded to everything that life threw at them. I was drawn in by their humanness. Their rawness.I loved this book. It was so honest and the way Coles spoke about his life with David, it is like you could get to know him. I didn’t particularly want to be a pop star, so when it came along it was never something I longed for, and never something I couldn’t imagine not doing,” he says. “I was stupid and I had a lot of money I didn’t really do anything with, so I just spent it on lots of ecstasy.”

Asked what David was like, Coles says his partner brought out the best in him. “I have to be right, and think things through, and work out my position,” says Coles. I want to thank the author for making something beautiful and sharing it with me and others who will hopefully find this book. I was in a dark place when I began the story, but I find myself in a totally different state of mind after finishing this story. It's the first time that Reverend Coles - who is vicar of St Mary the Virgin in Finedon, Northamptonshire - has revealed that it was caused by alcohol addiction. The couple became civil partners in 2011. “He said that if I didn’t make an honest man of him, he would go off with somebody else.” Although it’s a title he has often spurned, Coles is Britain’s de facto celebrity vicar, a result of his pop-stardom with the Communards in the mid-80s – which included the No 1 dance smash Don’t Leave Me This Way, and his position as one of the most high-profile gay clergymen in the world. His warmth and ability to distil the most complicated ideas have drawn fans from the unlikeliest of places (he was once described as the “atheist’s favourite vicar”).Northamptonshire writer, broadcaster and vicar the Reverend Richard Coles has opened up about the death of his husband David.

I admit to a smidge of disappointment with the ending. I felt it was cliché and trite. In fact, it could have done just splendidly without the final section altogether. But what do I know? I'm just a simple illiterate peasant who likes to read and muse on the human condition. Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize. Guess which one I do. Faith in God is a constant thread which is written and woven, implicitly and gorgeously, into the text Even in a civil partnership, priests must commit to celibacy. “It’s just ridiculous but it’s where we are,” says Coles, who has always spoken candidly about the fact that he and David were celibate. “It kind of worked and it was OK for us, it sort of suited our lives. But I minded having to.”He lived with his partner David, who was also an ordained priest, until the latter’s death in December 2019. This book covers that short period of time between when it became obvious David was dying to his funeral in January 2020, with brief allusions to the following months.

So often used to guiding others through their darkest moments, Reverend Coles found himself needing the help. Is it his biggest regret? “It was not my finest hour,” he says, “and it was tough asking people for forgiveness for having done it, but they did, actually. Of course I regret it.” He attempted suicide and was diagnosed with clinical depression; he was admitted to St Andrews psychiatric hospital in Northampton. “Life seemed to be pretty futile, and I just couldn’t see why you would want to do it.” Captures brilliantly, beautifully, bravely the comedy as well as the tragedy of bereavement' The Times The “unwelcome” attention was often part of media being its tabloid self. There were also floods of sympathy, concern, and love. Barbaric nastiness as well, with the usual homophobes and fundamentalists coming out of the inquisitorial woodwork to write in condemnation or, God knows how, expressing joy in David’s death. Coles wrote about some of this on social media, leading — not due to his request — to a police inquiry. Words, kind as well as callous, do have consequences.

Depression has been a constant companion for Coles. “I’ve never felt as desolate as I felt then,” he says. “But you look around the world sometimes and wonder why you wouldn’t be depressed. But there’s so much to not be depressed about too.” FYI: I don't rate memoirs and biographies. I don't feel comfortable rating someone's life experiences and feelings - especially in this instance. I had to laugh out loud when Richard likened David to Imelda in the shoe department - that was how Steve referred to me. I am not going to tell you any of the secrets, because that would spoil the whole thing for you. But remember that it is a book about secrets and identity, and realness and fantasy, grief and recovery, and what masquerades as fantasy often is a disguise for despair. I feel like this book gave an account of true love, and all the hardships that come with it, rather than perfect fairytale love. This was refreshing.