All That Really Matters

Campbell Armstrong met his first wife Eileen in Glasgow when they were both young. She was Jewish, the only daughter of an Orthodox family. When they married, Eileen showed Campbell the scar on her belly - the result of a Caesarean birth at 17. The baby had been given up for adoption in Yorkshire while Eileen got on with her life in Glasgow. The couple subsequently had three sons, and moved to America where Armstrong followed a career as an academic. He was also a drunk, a drug user and a belligerent partner. Though their marriage foundered, the pair remained good friends. Years later, when Armstrong had remarried and moved to Ireland, his son received a call from Eileen: she had cancer and was dying. The family flew out to America to see her. At the same time, far off in a Yorkshire house, a forty year old woman was trying to trace her mother. She was Barbara - her mother Eileen. After many hitches, the two get together and the awful truth is revealed, that Barbara, too, has cancer. What carries the two women through is their remarkable, positive personalities and - overall - an abiding love and integrity. This is a unique, poignant and incredibly positive memoir, full of candid self-knowledge and, ultimately, hope and love.