Standing on My Brother’s Shoulders
Making Peace with Grief and Suicide
Standing on My Brother’s Shoulders is a memoir — a dialogue between my brother and I that traces my journey of transformation through grief. It takes the reader on my path from loss and hopelessness to awareness, firefighting and ultimately to freedom from the past, with warmth, humour and compassion.
This is the story of my search for peace and understanding and the convoluted journey I took to make sense of my life.
I hope that my story and my experiences may give hope to others to find growth through adversity.
Published in the UK and Australia (2015), France (2017) and China (2020), with a second edition released in 2020 that includes a new preface, postscript and a guide to post-traumatic growth.
REVIEWS
“Without question, the most beautifully written, sensitive, balanced account of grieving that I have ever read. An absolute must read.”
Patrick Casement, psychoanalyst and award-winning author
“A must read about a topic we desperately all need to understand more about. A detailed, insightful and authentic account of the tsunami of destruction caused by suicide.”
Professor Kirsten McCaffery, Sydney University School of Public Health
reviews
“A deeply affecting memoir — tracking the nature and process of destruction, and more than this, the crucial reconstructions that can follow.”
Alex Garland, Oscar-nominated film director and best-selling author
“Tara’s book grabs you by the heart. Courage and humanity shine out of this wonderful memoir — a loving and hopeful tone throughout.”
Wanda Whitely, former Publishing Director, Harper Collins
What the Book Is About
Throughout my childhood our father suffered from crippling mental illness which robbed him of any pleasure in life and us of our father. When I was eight our mother was diagnosed with cancer and our family buckled under the pressure. Five years later she died and our family disintegrated. Our father was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and we were left parentless adolescents.
I turned to my handsome, compassionate, caring fifteen year old brother. He grieved silently through his writing, wrestling relentlessly with the turmoil of his emotions. Four years after our mother’s death, in his first semester at Oxford University, my brother took his own life. I was thrown into a maelstrom of grief that threatened to engulf me and I become haunted by the question Why?
The depth and extent of the wounds that I carried drove me to search for peace, for connection, for understanding, for meaning and for purpose. In 2009 my quest led me to begin writing my life story down. As the writing unfolded I began to feel an overwhelming sense that somehow by telling my and my brother’s story between us we could shine a light for others as they navigated their darkest days.
Editions
First edition — Watkins, UK & Australia, 2015
French edition — 2017
Chinese edition — 2020
Second edition — Watkins, UK & Australia, 2020 (updated with new preface, postscript and post-traumatic growth guide)
Where to Buy
Links to purchase — Penguin Random House, Booktopia, Amazon, Book Depository.
Sirens
Inside the Shadow World of First Responders by Martin Mackenzie-Murray
“Tara, a firefighter, experienced devastating loss at a young age. She found camaraderie in the fire brigade, but also confronting reminders of her past.”
Three first responders – a paramedic, a police officer and a firefighter – are motivated by a desire to serve the community. But they are drawn to their work by more complicated impulses as well: a need for control, an acute awareness of danger, and childhood experiences they are still running from.
Peter, a paramedic, served at high-profile disasters including the Port Arthur massacre and the Beaconsfield mine collapse. Despite helping countless people, he is haunted by the lives he couldn’t save.
REVIEWS
‘A personal work, and a window into the shadow world of those we call on in our hours of need.’
The Guardian
TEStimonials
‘In these intimate portraits, Martin McKenzie-Murray gives us rare insights into the universal human need to seek safety in an unjust world and the life-saving powers of our infinite capacity for meaning-making. A complex, courageous and deeply moving work.’
Sarah Krasnostein, author of The Trauma Cleaner