Author Description

After more than three years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch died in January 1999. Early that month she was taken to a home for the terminally ill, and although she had to be removed by coercion, she quickly settled into the home, and remained radiant and calm for the last weeks of her life. The last year or so of Iris Murdoch's life provides the framework for "Iris and the Friends", but within this structure, John Bayley returns repeatedly to memories of his own earlier life, and of more than 40 years of marriage to Iris. Alzheimer's is a lonely predicament for the carer, and Bayley describes how he coped with the ordeal of watching his wife become terminally ill by forming a growing dependency on memory as a stand-by, consolation, and friend. In the final chapters, Bayley describes his wife's death which was an entirely serene one. He recalls how she slipped quietly out of consciousness and how he felt resigned and at peace with himself.