Cosmo Landesman has no time for feel-good-grief memoirs

‘This is a book about how you don’t get over it,’ You Are Not Alone begins. If you’re new to bereavement, looking for a way through the death of a loved one, perhaps this doesn’t scream of optimism. But Cariad Lloyd’s warmth, generosity and gentle pragmatism makes her book one of the most reassuring I have read.

She is a member of ‘the club’ – the Dead Dad Club. Her father died 24 years ago of pancreatic cancer when she was 15. She is also the host of the award-winning podcast Griefcast, through which she has interviewed many bereaved individuals – comedians, writers, actors, chefs, artists – who have suffered the loss of children, parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and pets. You Are Not Alone is the distilled wisdom of her experiences and those of her guests. But this isn’t a self-help book – Lloyd isn’t a grief counsellor or a palliative doctor; she is a comedian who happened to lose her father at an early age – and it isn’t a memoir either.