PODCAST: On the Marie Curie Couch with Catherine Mayer

Catherine Mayer is a bestselling author, journalist and activist. She is the co-founder and president of the Women's Equality Party and co-founder of Primadonna, a festival that celebrates brilliant writing, music and ideas giving prominence to women. Her most recent book, the memoir Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death, contains letters written by her mother after Catherine's beloved stepfather died. In this episode of On the Marie Curie Couch, Catherine sits down with Jason to talk about losing her stepfather and also the death of her own husband, Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill, at the start of the pandemic.

"[Andy and I] talked about absolutely everything. We were very close. There was almost no subject that was off bounds, but death was off bounds. He had a real problem with talking about it... And so I have to confront the fact that things may have gone differently if we'd had those conversations."

"I don't think there's any way of escaping or mitigating grief. People mouth that platitude about grief being the price of love. It is a platitude, but it's also true. It's not that you can aim ever to avoid it, if you are lucky enough to love somebody you will experience it."

"There's an amazing song that Andy wrote in 2015. It's called The Dying Rays and it's absolutely about mortality and is loud guitar music, post-punk. It's a beautiful, lyrical piece that was so clearly about death."

Stop the seconds flow
Oh, I'm too late
I'm back where I began at the start
I'm caught in the wake
I'll have my due and drag the rock up the hill
Nothing to lose that's not been lost
I wish the sun anchored still

What I wanted disappears in the haze
A speck of dust held forever in the dying rays

Breath on the mirror; nothing inside
The horizon's bare, but in the night, I miss the pilot's light

Control and power, empires were built in our minds
But it will all go up in a blaze; only dust in the dying rays

- Gang of Four, written by Andy Gill

Tap the link near the top of this page to listen to Catherine's chat with Jason. Alternatively, listen to or download it via Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd prefer, you can read a full transcript of the episode. Be sure to like and subscribe so you know when we’ve uploaded a new episode – there are more conversations coming soon.