Where are you? by Katie Herdman - Book Review

Reading is one of the safest and often most candid ways to experience the difficult circumstances that some people, through no fault of their own, find themselves in. Provided the author has a strong ability to write and that the accounts are earnest, there is an unfiltered truth to writing that may be uncomfortable to read, but also has a striking ability to transport and educate audiences. 

In 2019, Katie Herdman, began keeping a journal of life with her husband Jim and his mental and physical decline at the hands of Parkinson's disease and dementia, which eventually caused him to sadly pass away in the August of 2020. Given the complexity of his condition, the sparseness of adequate care available, and Katie’s own compassionate reluctance to submit Jim to a care home, virtually all of Jim’s care was done by his own wife in their own home. Katie’s only respite during all but the final months of Jim's life came in the form of their son Adri and his wife Truc, who as described in the book, proved a necessity on several occasions. 

These collected journals, titled Where Are You? spare no detail and pull no punches when recollecting the daily trauma and hardships experienced by both Katie and her husband during Jim’s illness. Parkinson's and dementia have an extremely cruel effect on the human body in virtually every capacity, but certainly the most harrowing is how it affects the brain. As described superbly by the author of this book, sufferers are subject to frequent bouts of forgetfulness, anxiety, depression and aggression hinging on violent outbursts. During her daily routine, Katie was tasked with feeding, dressing and generally comforting her husband, as well as managing all of his toilet trips and taking him out for exercise and recreational activities. These already gruelling jobs were made even more arduous because of Jim’s frequent refusal to cooperate and moderate his language towards his wife, the entirety of which was caused by his condition. 

Where Are You? describes how these tasks become increasingly more difficult with each passing month, not only because of the exertion they had over Katie, but how the decline in Jim’s health caused him to become an increasing liability to himself and a danger to those living with him. Nonetheless, Katie Herdman was a carer who persevered no matter how tough and thankless the challenges became, even when the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 stifled much of the activities she relied upon to support her husband. Her accounts of the daily strife in her role as carer remain first-hand and wholly personal across the entirety of this collection.

Providing a powerful sense of love and humanity to the more sombre themes of Where Are You? is the ever-potent affection with which Katie describes her husband even in the most loveless of times. Theirs was a marriage based on friendship, humour, lust, passion and trust which spanned across 40 years, and Katie Herdman recalls many fond memories of the poignant, exciting and raunchy instances they shared as a couple and how she holds them close to her heart even in the bleakest times. 

However the past is not the only place where Katie retains love for her husband. The book shows how her heartfelt feelings for her life partner remain firmly in the present at all times. The bravery with which she documents her activities allows readers to witness a very human reaction to many of the emotionally exhausting ordeals one faces as a carer, and as is fully understandable and altogether relatable, not all of them are positive. But for each moment of frustration comes a resulting declaration of affection and devotion. Through this, readers are reminded that partnerships founded on the most honest, noble and selfless traits in the human condition are capable of surviving tests that others may find unimaginable.

One can consider Where Are You? to be more than an emotionally intense documentation of a loved one’s declining health. Katie Herdman quickly and consistently establishes it as a calibration of Jim, her husband’s life. Through reading it, we are granted a powerful insight into the man behind the disease and who he was in the lifespan before those tough final years. Katie ensures readers get to know Jim as the kind, humorously quirky and interesting person he was through his life. But most importantly, and as displayed in the heartwarming images compiled at the end of the book, Katie affirms Jim to have been a wonderful and devoted husband, who would be remembered as such despite the difficult closing moments of his life.

First-hand accounts as written in Where Are You? are necessary and relevant for as long as there are people still living with the effects of Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Katie Herdman’s own personal account describes how love and treasured memories served as an important factor in keeping head above water during the day-in day-outs of her duty of care. There is an unrivalled sense of value to this book, partly because it tells the truth with a potency that other depictions may wince at, but also because it may be of possible comfort to others going through a similar ordeal. Either way, Where Are You? should be considered essential reading, an emotional and educational piece of work from a writer who penned her experiences in a reassuringly honest and fluid manner. 

You can order a copy of Where Are You? from Amazon and Waterstones.