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