'PEOPLE THINK THAT STORIES ARE SHAPED BY PEOPLE. IN FACT, IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND.'
At the time of his death in 2015, award-winning and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett was working on his finest story yet - his own.
At six years old, Terry was told by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything.
He spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong. At sixty-six, Terry had lived a life full of achievements: becoming one of the UK's bestselling writers, winning the Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood for services to literature.
Following his untimely death from Alzheimer's disease, the mantle of completing Terry's memoir was passed to Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the author's literary estate.
Drawing on his own extensive memories, along with those of Terry's family, friends, fans and colleagues, Rob recounts Terry's extraordinary story - from his early childhood to the literary phenomenon that his Discworld series became; and how he met and coped with the challenges that 'The Embuggerance' of Alzheimer's brought with it.
'Of all the dead authors in the world, Terry Pratchett is the most alive.' - John Lloyd
Every early death is unfair. In a perfect world, we'd all die old and comfortable. But some early deaths hit harder than others, and PTerry's was a very hard blow to a lot of people.
One of those most affected was Rob Wilkins. Rob, a long time fan of Terry's, answered an ad for a personal assistant position without much idea what it would entail (that's fine though, because Terry wasn't sure what it would entail either, he just thought he should have one.) Rob planned to stay in the job for a year or two, for the experience, and ended up being one of the people closest to Terry, and inextricably entangled with the Prachett family and the business of being 'A Nauthor' (quite different from being An Author, of course.)
Terry's early years, mostly drawn from notes the great man himself left for an eventual biography, are interesting but nothing new if you are a fan. Where things get fascinating is where Rob signed on, because from there on we are literally watching over Terry's shoulder as he works and learns and lives and, eventually, declines and dies. It's just as heartrending as I thought it would be, but somehow softer, perhaps because Rob has had time to process...Terry died in 2015, a lot further ago than we think. Although the sections around his death were hard to read, for me one of the toughest sections was immediately after the diagnosis, when Terry is reciting, on the edge of panic, all the works in progress that he desperately wants to finish before the end. After all, by the time he died Terry had come to accept it, and so in a way did we.
A man is not dead until the ripples he caused fade away, and thanks in no small part to Rob and his tireless efforts, Terry Pratchett will live a long time yet. GNU Terry. And GNU Rob. Thank you for sharing him with us.
Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes is available now. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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