In Gratitude

By Jenny Diski

_______________

'One of the most inventive, original and disturbing writers of her generation' - Daily Telegraph

'Diski does not do linear, or normal, or boring … In Gratitude amounts to the inner monologue of a highly intelligent, furiously funny, traumatised woman' - Helen Davies, Sunday Times

'She deserves our unfeigned admiration, not for her bravery or her struggle, or any irrelevant tosh like that, but for writing so well' - Guardian
_______________

In August 2014, Jenny Diski was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and given 'two or three years' to live. Being a writer, she decided to write about her experience – and to tell a story she had not yet told: that of being taken in, aged fifteen, by the author Doris Lessing, and the subsequent fifty years of their complex relationship. Splicing childhood memories with present-day realities, Diski paints an unflinching portrait of two extraordinary writers – Lessing and herself.

Jenny Diski died a week after the publication of In Gratitude. A cerebral, witty, dazzlingly candid memoir, it is her final masterpiece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Apr 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781408879924

Jenny Diski

Jenny Diski is the acclaimed author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. Her journalism has appeared theSunday Times, Observer and London Review of Books among others. She lives in Cambridge.

Reviews for In Gratitude

[bobbieharv · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well, I love memoirs and diaries and medical writing and reading about other people's cancer and (most of) Doris Lessing's books, but I had a hard time with this. I understand that with an incurable cancer diagnosis, arduous debilitating treatment, and an early life living with a very difficult famous writer, some bitterness is to be expected, but the title belies all of this. She's angry and belligerent but seems oddly unaware of this.I suppose I should read some of her other books to understand her better.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sadly, her last book. Happily, this is Jenny Diski all the way, wry, frank, unapologetic and intelligent. Once she receives a terminal diagnosis (two, actually), Diski wrote a kind of life-review-cum-journal-of-her-last-months. I am sorry we will not be reading any new books from her, but I am thankful for this one and all the others she wrote over her life.

[snash_44 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An irascible, intelligent, honest, and often humorous memoir written by the author upon learning she had inoperable cancer. The book deals with her coping with her treatment and looming death about a third of the time. The rest in reminiscence over her life, particularly the first twenty years.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting story of life with Doris Lessing in the mid to late 20th century, and thought provoking writing about dying with lung cancer.