Author Gideon Haigh wrote the slim memoir MY BROTHER JAZ in a frantic 72-hour stretch and first published it on his Substack. The immediate, urgent and resonate response by readers encouraged Melbourne University Press to release the work (complete with photographs) as a small, pocket-sized copy in 2024.
First written in January 2024, Haigh’s words are a raw and anguished remembrance of the tragedy of losing his 17-year-old younger brother when he was killed in a road accident almost 40 years ago. The grief is still so fresh that it seems impossible it happened four decades earlier, yet because Haigh contained his pain for so long, it comes out in one long exhale, like a blown-up balloon quickly deflating. Although he thought many times over the years about writing about his brother’s death, and even once started, he could never go on. Something blocked his words and stopped his story.
On the back of the book, Haigh is quoted as saying: ‘Why did I even start this? The only reason I can think of is that it has to be done. It can’t remain unwritten, just as I could never leave Jaz unremembered.’ And with that, he unleashes a poignant, philosophical and thoughtful train of memories about when he first heard the news, the inquest and the days and weeks following, his therapy for bereavement and the result of his loss on his subsequent close intimate and family relationships.
Towards the end of the memoir, Haigh states: ‘I’m honestly not sure what I have achieved – it is too early to tell. Having again lost my emotional bearings I have at least gone looking for them,’ and says that reviewing the official findings and undertaking an honest reflection of his grief has perhaps ‘helped render more coherent the chaos of vivid impressions in my mind.’ His decision to examine his loss rather than look away appears to have had a life-changing and powerful result, even if he is not sure yet what that might be. Reading his words feels like a great weight of 40 years has finally been lifted; that the writing and interpretation of his words has fulfilled an absence or lack in his life.
This is such a short read – you could go from start to finish in less than an hour. Yet it is a potent force, a commanding voice, a meditative reflection on sibling love, regret, loss, grief, resilience and perseverance. Haigh is self-effacing, self-deprecating and unsure exactly what he is revealing through this writing but is certain of one thing – it was finally time for these words to be written, and for him to set his hand to writing them. A succinct, ravaging, heart-breaking and loving tribute to a brother lost so long ago.