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All That Was Lost

'A page-turner and surprisingly tender' Katie FForde

By (author) Alison May
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher: Legend Press Ltd, London, United Kingdom
Published: 6th Sep 2018
Dimensions: w 129mm h 198mm d 20mm
Weight: 248g
ISBN-10: 1787198758
ISBN-13: 9781787198753
Barcode No: 9781787198753
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What Reviewers Are Saying

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Mar 2nd 2019, 11:11
Different, unusual but beautiful all at once
Average - 6 out of 10
A story of three different peoples lives and how, through grief, heartbreak and secrets, they become intertwined. Patrice Leigh, a nationally celebrated medium (or so she claims), reaching the end of her career. Leo, the journalist hired to write Patrice’s biography and Louise, a mother grieving the brutal death of her teenage son.

Through Leo’s interviews with Patrice, we find more out about his life; his broken down marriage to Marnie, his grief over his teenage son going missing 4 years earlier with no body ever found and his need to know more of his own history.

Louise is completely desperate to feel some connection to her son, and seeks Patrice out for a reading and ends up meeting Leo were an unconventional relationship begins through an understanding of each other’s grief.

The story of Patrice is told from present perspective and from 1967, when she was 16 years old (and went by Pat). As the story develops, it is clear that Patrice is hiding many secrets in the present, something Leo is more than aware of.

I’ll be very honest. I didn’t expect to enjoy this book. From the description alone, it didn’t seem like ‘my type of book’ but I’m very open minded with reading and gave it a go. I’m glad that I did, it’s a lovely story and I very quickly become captivated by the characters and needed to know what was going to happen with their story. I feel the author made the divide between present Patrice and 1960’s Pat very clear yet you still connected to them as one person.

It’s a story on just how far we are willing to go and what we will believe when faced with grief. The book is different and it’s unusual but I feel Alison May has touched on grief and loss beautifully.
Nov 3rd 2018, 13:40
A very human story of the cause and effect of loss
Excellent - 9 out of 10
It’s a bit hard to not make this book sound like a depressing read. Amongst Alison May’s pages there exists every realm of loss imaginable. The loss of a child and the loss of a parent. Experiencing loss and creating loss. Loss of love, history, identity, hope, sanity, memory, dignity, reality and truth. Even the loss of a pet dog sneaks in there.

There’s something about loss that interests people. It’s what makes drivers take a look when passing an accident and consumers buy a tabloid which reports a human tragedy. It’s the sense of catharsis produced through morbid curiosity. This interest perhaps is a flaw in human nature. So it is very fitting that this story is based on flawed humanity and the difficult decisions that humans make. Not always the right ones.

Patrice is part Psychic Sally and part Blanche Dubois. Impeccably controlled and smartly turned out with a heartbreakingly tragic past swirling inside. All That Was Lost takes us along two parallel stories. In one, we witness celebrity psychic Patrice Leigh fighting to maintain her identity against the onset of what may be dementia. In another, the teenage Patience Bickersleigh comes of age in 1967. It’s clear that the two are the same person, and slowly we piece together each one’s story.

Amongst all of this are entwined the stories of Leo and Louise. Two individual parents experiencing grief and loss in very different ways. What is most affecting about the stories here is how Alison May so accurately conveys the ripples of effect that loss causes through a family and indeed a community. How loss can be both sanctioned by a community, feared by a community and sought out by a community.

In a previous professional life I booked theatre shows for venues, and in the industry certain celebrity psychics were always a dead cert to sell out (if you’ll excuse the pun). I remember one particular psychic lost a piece of jewellery in the venue and the general consensus amongst the staff was scathingly unsympathetic. Could they not locate it with their ‘gift’?

I booked these acts with some moral hesitation since making money out of other people’s loss doesn’t sit that well with me. Clearly the income of the venue won out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this all the way through reading this book. Perhaps it influenced my sympathies.

In the end, the barriers that Patrice has built between her current identity and her teenage self allow the reader to completely sympathise with Patience without much liking Patrice in the present day. The narrative manages to link them and yet separate them entirely. My heart broke for Patience. I understood why she takes the path that she does. However this did not alter how unsympathetic I felt towards Patrice, and I found this contrast affecting if a little disturbing! The effect is that you are confronted quite graphically with your own judgemental inclinations.

So surely, this is loss at its most extreme. The decision of one person to completely erase their identity so as to stop experiencing the pain of the loss. As extreme, in a way, as Louise’s total submersion in her loss. Alison May clearly conveys the inclination of people put in extreme situations to react in extreme ways. It happens throughout the book, from the central protagonists to characters who lurk in the background.

However, for a book about loss, weirdly this is not devastating to read. It’s littered with sad experiences, yes, but there is something uplifting about Leo’s freedom at the close and, perversely, about Pat’s decision to take control of her own destiny. Perhaps it is this furtive sense of empowerment that makes this book such a page turner. Or perhaps it’s just morbid curiosity!