The Body in the Library by Graham Caveney: A fierce chronicle of facing down death that never dabbles in Hallmark epiphanies

Graham Caveney started out as a writer for NME, The Face and GQ in the 1980s and 1990s. He has written biographies of William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and a book on New York’s alternative literary scene. Essentially an interpreter of music and the arts, he’s also proudly working class and a man with a tumultuous life story. His previous memoirs, The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness (2018) and On Agoraphobia (2022) explore addiction, sexual abuse and mental illness.

The Body in the Library is also autobiographical. Caveney was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer in early 2022, and he chronicles his illness from diagnosis until an unexpected remission that sees him through to beyond his “sell-by date”, allowing him to finish his book.

If it sounds grim, of course it is. Yet Caveney’s tough honesty, humour and dignity allow us to read his story with compassion and deep respect as opposed to horror. He is raw, but never self-indulgent, moving and yet never maudlin: “I find I am using the past tense more. Is dissolving into was.”

He is angry; there are no Hallmark card epiphanies. But the gravity with which he approaches his subject is shot through with a resplendent lust for life that bubbles into absurdist humour at unexpected moments, such as when, in view of his 14-month survival estimate, he considers assassinating Boris Johnson, since a judge can only sentence him to “life”.

Some passages, especially for readers of the author’s own age, are bittersweet. Born into a generation whose dark punk ethic once romanticised Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain and the whole “bedsit pale” Goth death-trip brigade, Caveney puts it simply: “It turns out I don’t want to die before I get old.”

Generously, he often takes the focus off himself and explores how his favourite authors and indeed, popular culture, approach the subject of illness. He shares insightful reflections on his life’s passions of music, art, politics and love: which he finally found in recovery.

Caveney’s analysis of modern healthcare is sharp, exposing our vulnerability in a system that moves between “triumphant modernity and abject humanity, congratulating us on how far we have come, reminding us of how far there is to go”.

A surprising, fierce, and deeply moving read.