'With honesty, compassion, humour and intelligence, Tara Lal has written a deeply affecting memoir. Her courageous book tracks the nature and processes of destruction, but more than this, the crucial reconstructions that can follow.' – Alex Garland, screenwriter, director, producer and bestselling author of The Beach
Tara's childhood was scarred by the debilitating mental illness of her father and by her mother's death from cancer when she was thirteen. Caught up in grief and despair, Tara and her older brother Adam developed a deep, caring bond, but Adam struggled silently with growing anxiety and depression. Four years after their mother's death, he committed suicide, throwing himself from his study window at Oxford University. Grief and insecurity threatened to engulf Tara, but eventually she found, within her brother’s diaries, her reason to live. The story moves from London to Sydney as Tara rebuilds her life, firstly as a physiotherapist and then a firefighter. Through her search for understanding and a powerful dialogue with her brother, she eventually gains freedom from the past and a life of meaning. Trained in suicide prevention, the author hopes that Part 1 will allow the reader to identify risk factors for mental illness, as well as strategies that reduce the effect of trauma and loss. Part 2 seeks to give examples of techniques to improve resilience. And in Part 3 her story shows how we can aid post-traumatic growth and improve happiness levels through positive psychology.
