A Pocketful of Happiness

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I've always liked Richard E Grant, ever since my family watched his version of The Scarlet Pimpernel yearly like it was some kind of religious ritual and later, as an older teen, I found his autobiographical film Wah Wah about childhood trauma, colonialism and being the outsider quite powerful (especially since my granddad actually lived for a bit in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and described similar experiences) and his exuberance on social media about everything is endlessly endearing. I felt for him when he publicly announced losing his wife on socials and his enduring love for her was palpable #couplegoals. I was therefore quite interested in reading this memoir. As I listened to you read your book (which is surely better than just reading it!), I realized that there are universals that caretakers experience—universals that I had not realized before.

Walk, lurch downstairs, utterly overwhelmed and discombobulated. Tears blurring everything. Grateful to have something to do. Do not read if you have someone very ill in your life just now but for me despite losing many family members and friends in death, two this year, it’s such a wonderful book. Thank you Richard E Grant for sharing your pain and yet give us the occasional loud laugh in writing. Grant jumps from vulnerable journal entries on Joan’s palliative care to recounting his glory days of ‘Withnail and I’, his 2019 Oscar nomination, glitzy party mentions and celebrity name drops. While his wife features in these chapters as a byproduct of their marital entwinement, Grant has made himself the star of the show in these scenes in true thespian style.Must be jet lag. But let’s face it, Swaz, it’s really boring, and I couldn’t hear a word that young woman was whispering.” Our panel of authors and literary experts choose 100 English novels that changed the way they see the world. The Novels That Shaped Our World What will surprise audiences most about the show? Hopefully, that you don’t know what will happen, it’s not obvious. I don’t think of what’s going to happen or how it’s going to turn out. That’s the draw of it.

Not very good—it’s an impression rather than the real thing and you couldn’t sustain a whole performance doing that. Needs to be as accurate and authentic as possible.”

This honest and frequently hilarious memoir is written in honor of that challenge—Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries he shares raw detail of everything he has experienced: both the pain of losing his beloved wife, and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in Withnail and I to his thrilling Oscar Award nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me? Academy Award–nominated actor Richard E. Grant’s “genuine and compelling” ( The New York Times ), “moving and entertaining” ( Publishers Weekly , starred review) memoir about finding happiness in even the darkest of days.

Once you've stepped off the running machine, it's suddenly clear where you're actually standing and who is standing with and beside you. And who ISN'T." Oilly brings us breakfast in bed and questions Joan about how long she’s felt breathless and had a cough. It’s a completely honest and open exchange, which enables us to share everything that the doctors and scans have revealed. The parental push-me-pull-you of wanting to protect our grown-up child, by withholding detailed medical information, is subverted by her open-hearted need to know and share everything. Any chance you might consider my inserting a single capital letter in between, as I don’t have the funds to get all my printed photos redone?” Sorry, you’re on speakerphone as I’m driving and the line is bad. Please say your name again?” replied Grant. Large-lettered CANCER RESEARCH CENTRE sign panics Joan. Reach for her hand. Park up, hug her, and whisper love and assurance as best I can. Walk arm in arm into the deserted reception. Eerie. As though everyone has been vacuumed away. The staff are incredibly kind, soft-spoken and gentle, which underlines the gravity of our situation. Form filling then ushered into a small room where a nurse asks her to lie down and injects a saline solution into her arm, followed by a radiation drug that will circulate through her bloodstream, taking an hour to fully absorb, during which she has to lie still and not talk.Not to be disingenuous about it, but that’s the nature of an actor’s life,” he tells Shortlist of his current, homebound life, “I have actor friends that have said that apart from not being able to go anywhere, it doesn’t really feel any different because, for a lot of the time it’s feast or famine: if you’re working, then you’re filming every hour of the day, and you’re so grateful when you have a day off, but the majority of the time you’re not working.” This resulted in experiencing ‘literary whiplash’ - pulled around from an emotional chapter to subsequently being regaled with glossy celebrity tales in the next one, and feeling slightly uncomfortable about how they could be within such close proximity of one another.

Joan’s distinctive “gravy” voice—full of rich, delicious brown notes—has begun to alter, as her breath support has halved, and sounds more like her Scottish mother, sometimes leaping into a higher octave. Her Central School of Speech and Drama–trained standard English accent is sounding more Aberdonian than I’ve ever noticed before. Manage to get through to our local health centre immediately and given an appointment at 5 p.m. for a chest X-ray and blood test at Kingston Hospital. The details of Joan’s diagnosis with lung cancer, the various tests and treatments she undergoes, how she and her family come to terms with her terminal prognosis, and her death are all described with an honesty that I know many readers will appreciate. It is great to hear that they were so well-supported by the NHS and by their friends so that Joan could die at home. It's is a remarkable mix of humour and tragedy, sprinkled with name-dropping, and delivered with insight and charm. I ask if he thinks this is because he grew up in Eswatini (then called Swaziland) before moving to London in his 20s, so although he can charm his way into English society – even going to Prince Charles and Camilla’s wedding – he is always standing a little to the side, trying to understand it. He smiles kindly at my armchair analysis: “It’s always a little odd to hear oneself defined by someone else, but that makes perfect sense. Yes, exactly.”I can only begin to imagine the emotional strength it must take to write, publish and promote a book within a year of the death of your life partner. And Richard E Grant’s love and admiration for his wife, Joan Washington, shines though every paragraph. Thank you Mr. Grant for this gorgeous book, this intimate look into the wonderful life that was your marriage to Joan Washington [and by the end, I was so very sorry that I never had an opportunity to meet such a fantastic person] and the extremely intimate look into her illness and death. Even though I cried serious ugly tears throughout much of this book, I would read it again for the first time in a heartbeat. I would read it again for a second time right now if I was told to. It helped me with my own grief and indeed I think anyone who has dealt with grief in any way imaginable, will get something from this book, even if it is an amazingly cathartic cry. An emotional rollercoaster - profoundly moving and wonderfully entertaining. A brilliant memoir about living, loving and losing.”