Amy Bloom and Xanthi Barker Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

Writers Amy Bloom and Xanthi Barker talk about love, loss and grief, which are at the centre of their recent memoirs.

Bloom, author of four novels, recounts in In Love the heartbreaking story of her husband Brian’s descent into Alzheimer’s and of her journey with him to Switzerland where he was helped by Dignitas to end his life. She describes how she struggled to find a way to support her terminally ill husband’s wish to end his life and explores the ethical problems raised by assisted death. Bloom is author of White Houses, Lucky Us, Away and Love Invents Us, and three collections of short stories. She is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University.

Barker is a new writer. Will This House Last Forever? is her first major work. It describes the grief she felt in her mid-20s when her father, poet Sebastian Barker, died, even though he had been largely absent in her life. The book is about the pain of having to come to terms with a parent’s mortality and the way grief defies logic.

Here they talk to former LBC radio host and BBC presenter Matthew Stadlen.