Mummydaddy – Jeremy Howe

I decided to read this book after it was mentioned to me by both my mummy and my daddy! I wasn’t sure at first – I read my fair share of so-called ‘misery memoirs’ when they first became prolific. I think Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called ‘It’ was one of the first. They are, to say the least, hit and miss. Some, like Dave Pelzer’s, are absorbing and thought-provoking and stayed with me for some time. Others, though often desperately sad (and I would never trivialise the things these people write about), come across as self-indulgent and actively catering for the more voyeuristic among us. This became increasingly the case as the genre expanded from memoirs of troubled childhoods to ‘tragic life stories’ more broadly (apparently the name given to the genre by Waterstones). So I always think carefully before picking up this type of book.

But I trust my parents’ recommendations and both said that Mummydaddy was worth a read, so read it I did. In fact, I read it in less than three days – it’s not a long or difficult read. It’s also surprisingly uplifting.

Mummydaddy is written by Jeremy Howe, some twenty years after the random and brutal murder of his academic wife in York, where she was lecturing at a summer school. It is of course the story of Jeremy learning to live without his wife, but more than that it is the story of him learning to be a single parent to two girls – aged only four and six when they lost their mum. What I liked about Jeremy’s story is that he does not dwell on the gory details (as those writers that I think cater to more voyeuristic readers do) – sections of the book that refer to the murder and the trial are predominantly matter-of-fact narratives. The focus, and the emotional pull, of the story is Jeremy’s evolving relationship with his daughters. There are some heartwrenching moments, but there are just as many heartwarming moments, and even some funny ones.

It is also organised only loosely chronologically, and in part thematically. I think this helps keep it from being too heavygoing – this is not Jeremy’s account of how he found his way out of grief (although he does reference his journey through the various stages of grief). Some reviewers on Amazon express disappointment or annoyance that Jeremy doesn’t mention anything about subsequent relationships until the final few pages; they feel cheated, that knowing whether he was alone or with somebody at various points in the memoir would have changed how they responded to it. For me, those people have missed the point. This isn’t Jeremy’s story, it’s Daddy’s story and it’s Jessica and Lucy’s story. It’s about his relationship to them, and their relationship to each other – not his relationship to girlfriends. It’s not even about his relationship to Lizzie, not really. I think it’s quite an achievement that Jeremy Howe has written a book that begins with the devastating loss of his wife, in which that loss becomes almost, bizarrely, incidental.

Mummydaddy is available in paperback and Kindle format.