“I never saw myself as an expert-by-experience or a vigilant, dedicated, resourceful adventurer. At least not to write that on my CV. I’d been working for several years in hospitality, and always looking for a ‘serious job’, a chance to change the world for the better. By the time I turned 50 I was able to write (never published) a funny book about depression and loss. After all I was an expert-by-experience of loss of all sorts by then.”
Read Jola’s fascinating and bracingly honest article about her experience of writing her book “Carry a Whisper” in her Community Contribution article ‘Why did I write a book about my bereavement by suicide?’.
Jola’s book is available to buy directly from Jola – a signed copy, for £9 plus postage. Contact her at yolazart@hotmail.co.uk. The book is also available from Stroud Bookshop and from Prinknash Abbey Bookshop.
Jola is available to give talks, based on her book (allowing for covid guidance re venues).
In her enlightening book, Jola Malin expresses herself in both words and images but most of all in the admitting of her impotency in the face of suicide. Jola is not one of those for whom expressing her feelings regarding searing loss comes easy and so she has turned to poetry and art as a means of expression which is every bit as powerful as verbal expression. Actually, I would say that it’s probably more powerful in fact. Jola allows the awful truth its silent voice where no glib answers may be heard. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for some sort of answer to the ‘why’ of suicide but can’t find one. The answer won’t be found in this book either but the silence in which all our big questions reside will.
If the purpose of art is to show us insights into the world, people, feelings and thoughts, then your book is a major artistic achievement.
“thought-full, intensely personal, brutally honest, emotionally intense”.
It’s exquisite to hold and read, beautifully designed and lovingly, courageously researched and written.