SUMMERREAD

Ben Goldsmith’s memoir is a searingly blunt account of how he searched for redemption after his teenage daughter’s death

God Is an Octopus is not a sad book, and for a memoir that begins with the harrowing narration of his daughter’s death, this is a remarkable achievement.

The book begins at a relentless pace, recounting in rapid fire the accident that ended his daughter’s life. As a reader, one is riveted in hypnotic horror by the raw tragedy of the event and Goldsmith’s vivid descriptions of his ensuing grief. After the shockwaves of the accident begin to recede, he begins what feels like an epic journey to find consolation – he must, as he puts it, “rediscover how to live”.

The account of his encounter with a spiritual medium in which he communicates with his late daughter is devastatingly poignant. But it serves an even more profound purpose, opening up a question that Goldsmith seeks to answer throughout the book: Is there more to life than meets the eye? Is there more to our world than what we can immediately perceive?

What follows are meditations on a variety of heavy subjects from religion to afterlife and the world around us. He opens himself to a “greater magic” and generously affords his reader time to explore these subjects alongside him. Through the clouds of grief, nature inches inexorably into focus. It is almost imperceptible at first, but present from the first pages of the book, when he recounts his daughter “unafraid” in “the blood red water” tenderly handling the carcass of a humpback whale.

It is present in the stunned and silent aftermath of the accident, when Goldsmith reverts to a routine of walking familiar paths and swimming in the pond at his family farm. As he searches for meaning in the inexplicable tragedy of his sudden loss, nature inevitably makes its presence known. He describes the moment he plunges into a pond and emerges feeling reborn: “I felt nature enveloping me, reassuring me, beneath a sun that shone hot even as it approached the conclusion of its long, daily descent westwards.”

There is a comfort that emerges in the cyclical inevitability of nature’s passage as he finds a “kind of music in the way… birds cross continents and oceans” in a “back and forth rhythm”. Following this living thread is what ultimately brings the book towards a sense of redemption and even peace. There is comfort in the construction of a stone circle in memory of his daughter, and this “infinite, eternity” and “timelessness” begins to pick at the seam of life’s greater questions. Emerging from the relentless pangs of immediate loss, he reflects on the wider context of what it means to be alive and is unflinching and bold in his search for optimism. woods around his home in Richmond nurturing birds and mice, to his present plans to rewild his family farm, suddenly the pages are brimming with new life, growth and hope. This growth infuses his own grief with hope as he imagines “nature reawakening in all its glory…an intricate tapestry perfectly infused” with his daughter’s “spirit”.

Goldsmith’s commitment to advocating for the natural world begins to drive the story forward, with detailed exploration of the environmental challenges facing the country. He concludes that by “spreading the word, hustling and haranguing”, he might “piece myself back together”. This conviction invigorates the rest of the story with every page, it seems, bearing new revelations about the past and future of the natural world.

From the sepia-toned stories of Goldsmith’s childhood rambling the

By the time he encounters his daughter while experimenting with ayahuasca – it feels as though the exhausting journey is reaching its conclusion – that realisation that he and his daughter were “alive together”, “stretching back through time”, is woven into the wider revelation of this epic memoir that ultimately finds joy in the most desperate circumstances.

Aside from his contemplation of these matters, Goldsmith’s careful portrayals of his family and friends reverberate with a love and warmth which assist in elevating the memoir to heights that did not seem possible given the depth of tragedy in its early chapters. This is a beautiful, haunting and tender book, essential reading for anyone on a journey of healing and discovery. n GOD IS AN OCTOPUS is published by Bloomsbury