Death is hard. It’s as inevitable as manipulation and misogyny; as inevitable as love, conflict, insanity, sleep-deprivation, and broken hearts. It’s coming. It’s here.
On the 28th April 2018, a young poet called Dan “DC” Collins was found dead in the woodlands by his home in Birmingham. He’d taken his own life. This was done, at least in part, because I had made the incredibly selfish decision to stop being his girlfriend. This decision would go on to affect the rest of my adult life.
I decided to escape from this reality by moving away to Basque Country, hoping to Eat, Pray, Love my way out of the survivor’s guilt and PTSD. This did not work. Instead, I had a nervous breakdown. Away from all the people who loved me, un-medicated, and isolated in a country where I didn’t speak the language, I managed to incredibly successfully push myself over the edge. It was a bad decision. I did however, manage to keep a diary of this inevitable mental decline. That diary is And Marvel.
I wanted to show this reality from the perspective of a flawed, grieving person. I wanted, most importantly, to keep DC alive in the only way I could.
This book contains candid discussions of suicide and the ways the world holds women responsible for the actions of their partners.
