Journalist Diego Courchay’s (Robert L. Breen Fellow, UTV 2019) latest piece is a slow burn of a tribute to his father, who died earlier this year of Covid in the south of France, where he spent his last year.
Alone in a small rental apartment, Claude Courchay left behind a scattering of pages from a work-in-progress, copies of his many published novels and a stack of library books. But Diego was determined to know what his father was reading when he died.
“I know he wouldn’t go anywhere without something to read; he couldn’t, not even on his deathbed… Yet at the hospital that day, the staff gave me only an old blanket, telling me that’s all he had brought… I seek out the village nurse who found him lying on the floor that morning in his flat. She tells me on the phone that she packed his things and there was a book, she saw to that. So I insist and the hospital admits they misplaced it, they’ll call me if they can find it.”
Yes, the piece is gently suspenseful. Read on to savor this stunning tribute by a writing son to his writer father.
