Robert McCrum in Conversation

With Martin Doyle

Presented in association with the John O’Connor Writing School

In the fascinating and insightful article, ‘A Life of Rhyme’, published in the Guardian in 2009, Robert McCrum interviewed his friend Seamus Heaney.  During the interview, Heaney spoke about the stroke he had suffered in 2006 and the feeling that the time following it seemed like a ‘closing cadence’.

In 1995, at the age of 42, Robert McCrum had suffered his own dramatic and near-fatal stroke, which became the subject of his acclaimed memoir My Year Off. Ever since that life-changing event, McCrum has lived unavoidably aware of his own mortality and his new book, Every Third Thought is an enthralling exploration of what it means to approach the end and how to avoid living life as if it is that ‘closing cadence’. 

Robert McCrum was born and educated in Cambridge. For nearly 20 years he was editor-in-chief of the publishers Faber & Faber, where he met Seamus Heaney. From 1996 to 2008, he was literary editor of the Observer of which he remains an associate editor. 

Robert McCrum will be in conversation with Martin Doyle, Books Editor of the Irish Times, talking about his new book, his life and career, his literary response to his own mortality and his friendship with, and memories of Seamus Heaney.

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Robert McCrum in conversation with Adrian Moynes

Robert McCrum is a writer and editor whose most recent book, Every third Thought: On Life, Death, and the Endgame was published in August 2017.

In a world where we are determined to live well at all costs, can we make peace with what Freud calls ‘the necessity of dying’? Robert McCrum ponders this question in his new book, Every Third Thought.  Searching for answers he turns to brain surgeons, psychologists, cancer patients, hospice workers, writers and poets.

Robert was editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber for 16years, where he published such writers as Kazuo Ishiguro, Milan Kundera, Marilynne Robinson, and Hanif Kureishi.

His account of his stroke, My Year Off (1998), is in its third edition as a Picador Classic. He is now Associate Editor with The Observer.

Adrian Moynes comes from Armagh and has enjoyed an illustrious year career with RTE with whom he produced, edited, wrote, and directed. He was Managing Director of RTE Radio and then Group Secretary of RTÉ. His interest in the arts is far ranging; literature is his life-long passion.

Note: This event is supported by Seamus Heaney Homeplace. Robert McCrum will read at Homeplace on Sunday afternoon, 5th November.

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EVERY THIRD THOUGHT: ON LIFE, DEATH AND THE ENDGAME -ROBERT MCCRUM

Aged 42, Robert McCrum suffered a near-fatal stroke, the subject of his acclaimed memoir My Year Off. Since then, he’s lived in the shadow of death. Every Third Thought takes us on a journey towards death, populated by the voices of brain surgeons, cancer patients, writers and poets. An enthralling exploration of what it means to approach the endgame and begin to recognise we are not immortal.

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Life, Death And The End Game

Since his near-fatal stroke in 1995, Robert McCrum has lived in the shadow of death. Now, twenty-one years on, he is noticing a change: his friends are joining him there and death has become his contemporaries’ every third thought. The question is no longer ‘who am I?’ but ‘how long have I got?’ In this unique conversation he is joined by neuroscientist Henry Marsh to discuss what it really means to face the end.

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Every Third Thought

In 1995, at the age of forty-two, Robert McCrum suffered a dramatic and near-fatal stroke, the subject of his acclaimed memoir My Year Off. Twenty years on, having lived in the shadow of his own mortality, he has noticed his friends joining him there. Death has become his contemporaries’ every third thought. The question is no longer ‘who am I?’ but ‘how long have I got?’ and ‘what happens next?’ Novelist Penelope Lively, whose memoir Ammonites & Leaping Fish is itself a brilliantly positive reflection on the later stage of our lives, joins Robert in conversation.

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Every Third Thought: Robert McCrum in conversation with Adam Phillips

In 1995, at the age of forty two, Robert McCrum suffered a dramatic and near-fatal stroke, the subject of his acclaimed memoir My Year Off (republished last year as a Picador Classic with an introduction by Henry Marsh). Ever since that life-changing event, McCrum has lived in the shadow of death, unavoidably aware of his own mortality. And now, twenty-one years on, he is noticing a change: his friends are joining him there. Death has become his contemporaries’ every third thought. The question is no longer ‘who am I?’ but ‘how long have I got?’ and ‘what happens next?’

With the words of McCrum’s favourite authors as travel companions, Every Third Thought takes us on a journey through a year and towards death itself. As he acknowledges his own and his friends’ ageing, McCrum confronts an existential question: in a world where we have learnt to live well at all costs, can we make peace with what Freud calls ‘the necessity of dying’? Searching for answers leads him to others for advice and wisdom, and Every Third Thought is populated by the voices of brain surgeons, psychologists, cancer patients, hospice workers, writers and poets.

Witty, lucid and provocative, Every Third Thought is an enthralling exploration of what it means to approach the ‘end game’, and begin to recognize, perhaps reluctantly, that we are not immortal. Deeply personal and yet always universal, this is a book for anyone who finds themselves preoccupied by matters of life and death. It is both guide and companion.

Robert McCrum was born and educated in Cambridge. For nearly 20 years he was editor-in-chief of the publishers Faber & Faber, and then literary editor of the Observer from 1996 to 2008. He is now an associate editor of the Observer. He is the author of My Year Off, Wodehouse: A Life (2004), six novels, and the co-author of the international bestseller The Story of English (1986).

Adam Phillips, formerly Principle Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practising psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently In Writing. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

For more information and to book tickets, please click here.