Awards

• Winner of Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize 2021 (UK)

Overview

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024 What makes a good death? A good daughter? In 2009, with her forties and a wave of austerity on the horizon, Marianne Brooker's mother was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She made a workshop of herself and her surroundings, combining creativity and activism in unlikely ways, but over time her ability to work, to move and to live without pain diminished drastically. In Intervals, Brooker charts her care for her mother as she stopped eating and drinking in a bid to end her suffering. They find solace in shared rituals: reading tarot, listening to music and making art. Tying their intimate experience to wider social conditions, Brooker explores the role of doulas, advance directives and the precarious economics of social, hospice and funeral care, as well as the work of various writers - from Anne Boyer and Donald Winnicott to Maggie Nelson and Lola Olufemi - to imagine care otherwise. A blend of memoir, polemic and feminist philosophy, Intervals is a deeply moving work that harnesses the political potential of grief to raise essential questions about choice, interdependence and end-of-life care.

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9781804270837

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Reviews

‘I marvelled at Marianne Brooker’s Intervals. Out of her mother's death, she weaves a short, tender, angry yet clear-eyed book about the nature of love, and what it requires of us all if we’re doing it right.’ — Joanna Biggs, author of A Life of One’s Own ‘I am now both mad and grateful for this formidable work of thought, which subtly yet profoundly shifts the terms of discussion on dying. What kind of world have we built for one another, asks Marianne Brooker, where many must struggle to be present for their own deaths? The many who live on borrowed time, in borrowed homes, dispossessed by a society that dangles rights without furnishing means? From nothing less than heartbreak, Brooker has germinated an exquisite and extraordinary reckoning, bringing a sorely needed focus on the substance of life to questions of a socially just death.’ — Amber Husain, author of Meat Love 'Both an elegy and an account of interrupted time, in this generous book Marianne Brooker draws together threads of memoir, social history and literature to tell a lyrical, ethical, and above all political story of pain, care, and maternal connection. Deftly, movingly, Brooker reminds us of the interdependence at the heart of all our lives, that we inherit more than biological matter, and that the dying mourn the living, too.' — Helen Charman, author of Mother State ‘Intervals is an extraordinary essay that is both unflinchingly intimate and radically political. It is the simple account of a daughter losing her mother too soon. It is also an examination of class, money and structural power. Brooker’s striking achievement is to never be prescriptive while, at the same time, never holding back from the force of her argument. It is, I suppose, an elegy. And like the best of elegies, and the bond it describes – it is charged with life.’ — Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall ‘A beautifully written portrayal of caring and end-of-life decisions – exquisitely sensitive, passionate and angry in its railing against our broken social care system.’ — Sam Mills, author of The Fragments of my Father ‘Intervals is an endlessly moving and profoundly generous telling of what it means to give and receive care. Stunning in its intimacy and expansive in its political purpose, Brooker’s writing invites us to think deeply about the relationship between giving care and honouring life. Through visceral, tactile details of creating, working, making and tending, Brooker brings us into the spaces where caring happens, where life and its endings happen. A rare, revelatory, and truly radical book.’ — Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Woman

‘I marvelled at Marianne Brooker’s Intervals. Out of her mother's death, she weaves a short, tender, angry yet clear-eyed book about the nature of love, and what it requires of us all if we’re doing it right.’ — Joanna Biggs, author of A Life of One’s Own ‘I am now both mad and grateful for this formidable work of thought, which subtly yet profoundly shifts the terms of discussion on dying. What kind of world have we built for one another, asks Marianne Brooker, where many must struggle to be present for their own deaths? The many who live on borrowed time, in borrowed homes, dispossessed by a society that dangles rights without furnishing means? From nothing less than heartbreak, Brooker has germinated an exquisite and extraordinary reckoning, bringing a sorely needed focus on the substance of life to questions of a socially just death.’ — Amber Husain, author of Meat Love 'Both an elegy and an account of interrupted time, in this generous book Marianne Brooker draws together threads of memoir, social history and literature to tell a lyrical, ethical, and above all political story of pain, care, and maternal connection. Deftly, movingly, Brooker reminds us of the interdependence at the heart of all our lives, that we inherit more than biological matter, and that the dying mourn the living, too.' — Helen Charman, author of Mother State

Author Information

Marianne Brooker is based in Bristol, where she works for a charity campaigning on climate and social justice. She has a PhD from Birkbeck and a background in arts research and teaching. She won the 2022 Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize forIntervals,her first book.

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