From The Independent:
Tom was my husband. Writing was his life and work. But in September 2008 he was diagnosed with a 'grade four' brain tumour, situated in the left temporal lobe, the area responsible for speech and language. During his last year, articulate speech became an effort. He willed words into being as they vanished again. It was a transcendent time, volatile and strange; full of danger. Tom's work was to keep his illness and his life in clear sight. His task was, in his own words, “a lesson in imagination, in self-imagination”. The incredible thing was that he could write this down.
Our house had long been a word factory. Since 11am on 11 March 2010, when we noticed Tom's words skip their sense in a more radical way, we knew that we were really in trouble. Tom had a second craniotomy on 13 April. After this, we were focused on the making of meaning. The level of production was intense. Tom kept writing. He revised older texts, collated essays, worked on images for an exhibition and wrote new material.
More here.
