A husband wakes up to find that his wife has had a seizure during the night. An ambulance is called and she is rushed to the Intensive Care Unit at a nearby hospital, where she lies in a coma. By day he sits anxiously beside her. He tries to think of ways to wake her up. He brings familiar objects to her bedside - her books, her hairbrush, flowers from their garden. He talks to her. He exercises her limbs. At night he sleeps in the chair at her bedside, dreaming that she will wake up, so that they can go back home. Years later the story of this same slow death is re-told by their grandson. He wants to understand his grandmother's life and death, what it meant to his grandfather, and what it means to him. He wants to understand the long and deeply loving marriage between his grandparents, and - in his own words - "how love can accumulate between two people over and through two lifetimes."
"It’s easy to see why Kimball is
held up as one of the potentially great literary hopes of
recent times."
--Book Munch, Chris
Pickering
"Kimball has created something
rare and brave in his second novel: the voice of an elderly
man watching a beloved life slip away and with it the entire
meaning of his own existence. … [It is a] beautifully tuned,
near perfect account of a very ordinary death."
--Metro London, Claire
Allfree
"Be warned: this book has the
power to make even the most hard-hearted of readers shed a
tear. … Kimball has broken into new territory: How Much
of Us There Was is one of the most graphic depictions of
illness and loss I have ever read."
--The Glasgow Herald
"A deep love between an ageing
husband and wife is given a heartbreaking voice in Michael
Kimball’s second novel, How Much of Us There Was. …
Told through the eyes of the husband, the story is tender and
poignant. His despair moves us because it is neither
fantastic nor indulgent."
--Time Out London,
Mariko Kato
"Not only does he address
mortality head-on, but his narrator describes the deep and
powerful love between his grandparents as his grandfather
quietly and desperately watches his wife slowly dying. The
grandfather’s narration is powerful and moving …
uncomprehending and breathless."
--The Observer, Rebecca
Seal
"It’s amid the surgical whiteness
of a hospital ward that godless loneliness hits hardest. It’s
against death in such a place that Michael Kimball’s sinewy
second novel, How Much of Us There Was,
kicks."
--The Guardian,
Hephzibah Anderson
"This is the saddest book I have
ever read and one of the most beautiful and unusual. A very
old man wakes up in the night to find his equally-aged wife
has had a stroke. Then follows a minute-to-minute account of
what happens in the hospital and finally, his tender care for
her back in their own home. One can't help being aware of his
grief and the great love he feels for his dying wife. It will
make you cry and break your heart but this is one book you
must read. Fewer than 200 pages but it says all."
--Telegraph and Argus,
Betty Williams
"A brave book"
--Fiction Stream