Dimensions
147 x 223 x 27mm
In July 2012 Thomas Harding's fourteen-year-old son Kadian was killed in a bicycle accident. Kadian Journal is a diary that Thomas started in the aftermath of the tragedy. Beginning on the day of Kadian's death, and continuing to the year anniversary, and beyond, it is a record of grief in its rawest form, and of a mind in shock and questioning a strange new reality. Interspersed within the journal are fragments of memory: jewel-bright everyday moments that slowly combine to form a biography of a lost son, and a lost life. It is an extraordinary document, and several things at once: a description of a family dislocated by sorrow, a forensic examination of a catastrophe, and above all else, an attempt to recover Kadian, in some way. In the tradition of Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking, C. S. Lewis' A Grief Observed and Sonali Deraniyagala's Wave, Thomas Harding's Kadian Journal is a lucid, raw, and startlingly brave book: a powerful and moving account of a father's grief, and a beautiful tribute to an exceptional son.