I have long been a fan of James Runcie. The Grantchester books and the TV series are true favorites for me. The Road to Grantchester is a novel that I thought was excellent and ranks high on my list of all time favorites. So, when I saw that Runcie had a new book coming out, I very much wanted to read it and when I received an e galley approval, I was overjoyed.

This is a beautiful book about a relationship, an illness, a death, growing up, having life change without one’s consent and knowing that grief transforms a person for ever. Its title comes from one on Runcie’s wife Marilyn’s favorite phrases.

In these pages, Runcie shares how his life changed when Marilyn was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease and subsequently died. Grief fills the pages but so does the couple’s earlier relationship as both Runcie and his wife become known to the reader in a generous sharing on the author’s part.

Some people write extremely movingly about grief. Think of Joan Didion or C.S. Lewis and then add Runcie to that list.

This book has received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for this title. All opinions are my own.

Pub date: 21 February 2023

This is a heartfelt memoir about Marilyn Imrie, a deeply loved wife and apparently accomplished theatre director, who died at age 72, within five months of her ALS diagnosis. It strikes me as a book that would have far more meaning for those who actually knew Imrie in life than a memoir for a general readership. Runcie, the author of <i><b>The Grantchester Mysteries,</i></b> writes that he hopes the book may provide comfort for those going through something similar, but I can’t quite see its doing that. There are regular allusions to plays, works of art, flowers, wines, fancy meals, fashion designers, shoe styles, soccer teams, operas, Scottish actors—I could go on—with which I—and I suspect many others—have little or familiarity. To me, <i><b>Tell me Good Things</i></b> felt a great deal longer than it is, and I wonder if the writing of it ought to have been delayed. It’s evident that it was composed, at least in part, to come to terms with a great loss.

The memoir consists of recollections of everyday sorts of things from James and Marilyn’s somewhat unusual marriage—Marilyn was 12 years older than her husband. Many of the details reported seemed very superficial to me. I felt I had little real sense of Marilyn as a person. What made her tick? There were certainly insecurities, and a coworker mentions her “desperation” at one point, but we are offered no insight into those things. There’s also no information about her childhood and little about her actual work. We’re told she liked wearing dramatic, attention-grabbing clothing, but hated having her photo taken. Hmmm. Why? She wanted to appear saintly (but apparently was not). Again, why?

I am, of course, saddened to think of anyone suffering as she did—a matter that James, her husband refrains from going into here—because this is, of course, about “telling the good things.”

If you’re acquainted with the Scottish theatre scene or Runcie’s other books, you may appreciate this more than I did.

A devastating close look at illness and its reverberations on a family's life. I really appreciated the closely drawn portrait of the author's wife and his evocation of her presence. A beautiful and heartrending book.