DEAR CHARLIE WAS WRITTEN WITH A lot of anger and the reaction of some readers seems to be simmering resentment. Reg Thompson wrote almost daily to his daughter after her death, at the age of 13. It is harrowing to be allowed into his grief and one obvious question is, why was it published? Does it serve a purpose? Rachel White, writer of the star letter, also lost her daughter and believes that it could aid understanding of the grieving process.

I can imagine that the death of a child would change a parent’s life completely and it must be difficult to know or love someone suffering that pain of grief. Thompson puts it into words. He tells us precisely how it feels and lets us know what helps and what does not. None of his friends can do or say anything to ease the pain, but the fact that they try touches him. I do not know that it would help someone trying to come to terms with a child’s death, but it is required reading if someone you know is bereaved — if only as a reminder that kindness is better than crossing the street to avoid saying the wrong thing.

Star letter

My 13-year-old daughter died in a road accident, coincidentally on the same day of the year as Charlie, but several years earlier. Reg’s outpourings are real, intimate, never intended for publication, an expression of his journey through the early stages of grief.

Each of us grieves in different ways. Reg reveals snippets of insight into how others in the family are coping. It isn’t a smooth progression, but it is a journey and therefore it goes somewhere. Sometimes other family members travel faster, sometimes slower; they travel their own route, together or in parallel — an achievement in itself as 85 per cent of couples experiencing the death of a child subsequently split up.

It is not, and could never be, great literature, but that’s not the point. It may just help others on this journey, and those supporting them, to understand more, and to find the will to travel, I hope together.

Rachel White, Burton Joyce, Nottingham

September 28, 2007

The Oxford-based Books on the Broad has won the 2007 Penguin/Orange Broadband prize for reading groups. Here members share some tips and their views of this book

OUR GROUP HAS MET FOR two-and-a-half years, with ages ranging from student to retired. We choose from a list of our own reading or by magpie research from reviews, prize lists, literary festivals, radio programmes, author recommendations and word-of-mouth.

If someone hasn’t read a book by the time we meet that’s their problem. There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to contribute properly, but it happens to everyone now and then, and it would be counterproductive to make people feel uncomfortable.

On Chesil Beach provoked a split. The young women were unimpressed by Florence. Older members were much more understanding of the couple’s sexual problems. Discussion of this aspect, however, was very discreet, perhaps because of the mix of age, gender and marital status. There is still reticence in the 21st century around sexual dysfunction. Ian McEwan has hit on one of our last taboos.

There is no consensus as to the most disappointing read. One member was so offended by the lurid material in Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel, that she wrote in our newsletter that she’d rather lick the inside of her dustbin than read anything else by that author.

Did anyone object to reading a book so emotionally demanding?

Kate: Most of the retired members refused to steep themselves in misery. One had bought the book for a friend who had lost her daughter, as she thought it might help, but she didn’t want to read it herself.

Harissa: My view was not that it would be emotionally demanding, so much as unmediated emotionalism. I think that something demanding would have to be more subtle.

Did any of you not cry while reading it?

Kate: If you allowed the first few pages to bring on the tears, you would end up blubbing through the entire read, which would be very exhausting. I decided to read it as I would any literary text, and not be upset by it.

Harissa: I find the assumption that crying would be a normal response surprising. Reg Thompson’s writings are the raw evidence of his grief, and my overwhelming impression was that I was a voyeur, reading something not meant for my eyes. There is a new way in which we experience grief as part of society, after 9/11 and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Perhaps with the mixed feelings expressed about the McCann family, we are beginning to have doubts about these outpourings? I haven’t read the McCann blog, but I wonder how long before that is between hard covers? If I was really being hard I would ask more about Thompson’s motives.

Is the grief as you expect, or more debilitating?

Kate: It’s normal. Although his grief might appear excessive distilled into 300 pages, the book covers a short period.

It takes a long time to get over bereavement.

Harissa: I find these questions irritating. I don’t think there’s a normal response to something like this.

Why is the last page so moving, when it reads like much of the others?

Kate: Throughout, Thompson has tried to present his daughter to us in vivid life, expecting that the reader will share a kind of proxy grief. As the final page closes on her. I didn’t feel a special sadness, it was just more of the same. Perhaps the emotion has gathered some kind of literary resonance by now, but the images are still unprepossessingly banal.

Harissa: I didn’t find the last page particularly moving either. I suppose the question is referring to that passage about how he feels the presence of his daughter everywhere? I don’t think it is intended for critical scrutiny, and were we to do this we could be accused of being hard-hearted. You can’t approach this book as you would Dickens on the death of Little Nell. I find much more moving passages where writers underplay the sadness they feel.

Is the book well written?

Kate: Thompson is media savvy and has pitched it for popular consumption. By the middle, more writerly images start to take over from descriptions of visits to the supermarket. As it becomes more self-conscious, questions could arise as to the sincerity of the emotions.

Harissa: It’s written in an accessible style and is clearly for a popular audience. It’s easy to read in the sense that nothing impedes you except the rather repetitive nature. Almost by definition it doesn’t go anywhere.

Would other descriptions help us to know Charlie better?

Kate: The wife’s voice is noticeably secondary. But Thompson’s depiction of his daughter is not always sympathetic. She comes across as a complete brat, to my mind.

Harissa: I don’t think that knowing Charlie better is the aim of the book.

Is it uplifting or depressing?

Kate: Neither — it is just an expression of grief with some philosophising on the transitory nature of life: “Life does really hang on a thread and we can be snuffed out in the blink of an eye.” But then we knew that already.

Harissa: First I wish that the book had never been written and that this poor man had not lost his daughter. But I find it really depressing that the publishing industry is developing a genre of sort of “light” self-help books. They are encouraging people to think that they are genuinely feeling something when real emotions go much deeper.

September 15, 2007

A collection of one man’s letters to his dead child is deeply moving. But why should we read it? Reg Thompson’s daughter died aged 13. She and her friend Livvy were struck by the south-bound Stansted Express as they crossed railway tracks to catch a train to Cambridge. In a book crammed with poignant lines, one that stands out is Reg’s assertion that; “The driver had recently been told not to sound his horn because of complaints from local residents.”

Reg deals with his grief by talking to his daughter. He writes to her on his computer, tells her how little her mother is eating, how much he loves her, how he would give his life for just another hour in her company. Reg is angry and bewildered and reminds himself he is not special, that children die every day – but the pain does not lessen.

It is all terribly sad. So why should we read it? I opted to do so because, on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Reg spoke so eloquently of a beautiful young girl who was the life and soul of his home, who would slam doors and shriek with laughter, that I found tears streaming down my face. They were not bitter tears though. In some ways it is an uplifting story; after all Charlie was happy and packed a lot into her 13 years. And the Thompsons are surrounded by understanding and generous family and friends.

In fact it is a book everyone should read simply to know better how to help anyone who loses a child. Reg does not like it when people say it must feel worse for him at Christmas; it feels bad all the time. It is reminds us all that having children leaves you so vulnerable to the pain of ever losing them.

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Dear Charlie: Letters to a Lost Daughter by Reg Thompson

John Murray, £7.99; 352pp

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