Come and join us at The Heath Bookshop for an evening with author, Sarah Tarlow. As part of A Matter of Life and Death Festival 2024 we are delighted to showcase her book, ‘The Archaeology of Loss’ and hear about the writing of her very first memoir.

Sarah Tarlow is a British archaeologist and academic. As professor of historical archaeology at the University of Leicester, Sarah is best known for her work on the archaeology of death and burial. She has written or edited ten academic books about archaeology and history. The Archaeology of Loss is her first memoir.

The Archaeology of Loss:

After thirteen years together, Sarah Tarlow’s husband Mark began to suffer from an undiagnosed illness, which all too rapidly left him incapable of caring for himself. Life – an intense juggling act of a demanding job, young children and looking after a depressed and frustrated partner – became hard.

One day, five years after he first started showing symptoms, Mark waited for Sarah and their children to leave their home before ending his own life.

Although Sarah had devoted her professional life as an archaeologist to the study of death and how we grieve, she found that nothing had prepared her for the reality of illness and the devastation of loss.

Fiercely vulnerable, deeply intimate and yet unflinchingly direct, The Archaeology of Loss describes a universal experience with a singular gaze.

With humour, intelligence and urgency, it is through its raw honesty that it offers profound consolation.