Decca Aitkenhead

Tony always used to tell me to think less and feel more, but I never could. Now that that's all I can do, I can see he was right - and if feelings are his gift from the grave, I'm afraid of taming them into words. A beautifully written, breathtakingly honest, unsentimental, profound memoir of love and loss from one of our most popular journalists

All at Sea

“A sensational, devastating story" (The Washington Post) that explores race and redemption, privilege and prejudice, love and loss, of how two people changed each other, and of what a sudden death can do to those who survive. On a hot, still morning on a beautiful beach in Jamaica, Decca Aitkenhead’s life changed forever. Her four-year-old son was paddling peacefully at the water’s edge when a wave pulled him out to sea. Her partner, Tony, swam out and saved their son’s life—then drowned before her eyes. When Decca and Tony first met, a decade earlier, she was a renowned journalist profiling leading politicians; he was a dreadlocked criminal with a history of drug dealing and violence. No one thought their romance would last, but it did—until the tide swept Tony away, plunging Decca into the dark chasm of random tragedy.

A Memoir

In the spirit of Alex Garland's The Beach, Decca Aitkenhead travels around the world in search of the perfect E and the perfect clubbing experience, 10 years after her first clubbing days in Manchester. Her journey links downtown Detroit with the townships of Cape Town, and beatnik San Francisco with Thailand's beach parties. While searching for the perfect pill, unintended encounters with dubious characters sometimes reveal she has travelled far from transcendence. While in Cape Town she meets the most notorious South African gangster and finds herself staring down the barrel of a gun in the hands of a dealer who is neither sober nor sane.

Decca Aitkenhead

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