"The A to Z of You and Me" by James Hannah

An audio book.

Ivo, 40, is being looked after in a room (which we later discover is in a hospice). He makes alphabetic lists of bodyparts and related memories to calm himself. These provide a backstory. He's often reminded of anatomy/science lessons. Mia (who he refers to as "You") was his girlfriend years before - a trainee nurse who was a house-mate of his friend Becka. Sheila is his favourite nurse now - the alphabet game was her suggestion. His father died early of cancer, her father was an alcoholic - they compared fathers as if they were playing "Sad Dad Top Trumps". Ivo was first diagnosed as a diabetic, then he needed dialysis. He offers advice to the young daughter of the woman dying in the next room. He tells her that Mia died 10 years ago.

His sister Laura's 5 years older than him. They haven't met since their mother's funeral 7 years before, because she chose Mal (11 grade A GCSEs) over him. She wants to see him now. This upsets Ivo's health. He doesn't want visitors but she comes anyway. She says that she stayed away from their mother at the end because it hurt too much, leaving him to deal with the funeral arrangements. Mal has been in jail for 6 years. Now he's out he's got a drug habit and is desperate to apologise to Ivo. Ivo refuses to see him. Mal was a drug dealer. Mia wasn't happy with Ivo's drug-taking (which he did while she was away). He was diagnosed with kidney failure.

We learn that Mal took him to Mia when he was stoned. Mal drove them to A&E and she died in a crash.

He starts having morphine. He talks about his funeral, wishing that he could have helped people more. He lets reality go, becomes delirious. Mia talks to him. He thinks Mal visits. He forgives him and feels better for doing so, then dies.

The amount of delayed revelation (about his location, Mia's death, the reason for falling out with Laura, the nature of Mal's crime) should have raised anticipation. Soon it made me distrust any piece of information because it might bloat into something else later (maybe Sheila was his aunt but we hadn't been told, etc). In the end though I was won over - the hospice details sounded convincing.

Other reviews

• Ian Sansom (Hannah’s debut is an excellent example of that genre of sophisticated and sentimental fiction in which the terrible perplexities of life are teased into pleasing fictional shape, a genre we might call the “heavylight”. The history of the heavylight can be traced back through Nicholls and Nick Hornby to Thomas Hardy and beyond, but it finds its perfect expression in the work of the undisputed heavylight champion of the world, Philip Larkin.)
• Natalie Xenos
• Jennifer Joyce