Shadow in tiger country
Shadow in tiger country: one last year of love
Louise and Tim Arthur, Harper Collins, £5.99. ISBN 0-00-653242-X
This book was reviewed by Ovacome member Valerie Jardine in the autumn 2000 newsletter
This book stayed in my mind long after reading it. It touched my heart, made me laugh and gave me courage. Above all, it's a love story.
Aged 27, Louise Arthur was told that her brain tumour was untreatable and she had a year to live. She and her young husband, Tim, were determined to fill the year with fun, love and achievement for them and their three-year-old daughter, Caitlin.
One of the things Louise did was to set up a website where she kept a diary of her responses to her changing illness. This was amazingly successful, with over 300,000 contacts from people worldwide, generating e-mails and discussions. The web diary was so amusing and poignant that the Daily Mail gave Louise a weekly column and a publisher asked her to write a book, which thrilled her - one of her ambitions fulfilled, a proper published writer!
Half the book is composed of Louise's web diary entries. These are interspersed with Tim's responses to events, often entertainingly written and painfully honest. Louise wanted to make every second count and they had wonderful times, working through her list of things she wanted to do: visiting New York or drifting over the English countryside in a balloon. She also wanted to make memorable her everyday time with Tim and Caitlin: cooking, playing in the park, watching TV, talking, and cuddling. Her diary describes her thoughts and feelings concerning the memories her daughter will have of her. Characteristic is her advice to Caitlin to 'disregard those wicked stepmother stories like Cinderella. Be nice to your stepmother'.
Louise, like many of us, said she learned a lot about herself and life through being ill, but what really struck a chord within me was that she didn't allow cancer to change the essence of who she was: she didn't want to be overtaken by the role of a 'cancer patient'. She remained Louise: a creative and talented photographer, a loving wife and mum, a good companion, stimulating and sometimes outrageous. For these are young people, in their twenties, full of dreams and enthusiasm and mischief, and this comes through in the style of writing, refreshing colloquial, uninhibited and willing to dig for the emotional truth underlying thoughts and actions.
There is so much here that speaks to those of us who have had our lives changed by illness. Reading it, I was inspired to re-evaluate my own attitude towards living with cancer.
I said this is a love story and so it is, the love and support of family, friends, children, strangers (who brought pies and flowers to their door). Above all it is a story of a young married love with all its passion and romance, of two young people, deeply in love, facing a tragic time and turning it into something valuable.
