The blog is in the middle of a celebration of all the singles Edwyn Collins has released across what has been an unbelievable career. I thought I’d delve into the vaults for a review that I originally penned in July 2009 when the hardback edition of the book was published, and which I then re-posted in February 2015 with an update of what had happened during the intervening six years. I now want to bring it right up to date, and to make a very strong recommendation to everyone in the TVV community – if you don’t own a copy of Falling & Laughing, then ask someone to gift it to you this coming Christmas. I’ll provide a link at the foot of this post.
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After reading this compelling 310 pages, I was left with quite a number of impressions, one being that I couldn’t possibly cope with being married to Grace Maxwell. She herself acknowledges that she is a nagging, dominating, sharp-tongued and single-minded individual who has difficulty ever admitting that she ever gets something wrong. But one thing is for sure…..if she wasn’t like that, her partner would most likely be dead, or at best locked away from the world, dependent on specialist round-the-clock treatment. So without any question at all, Edwyn Collins is very blessed to have Grace Maxwell by his side…
Falling and Laughing – The Restoration of Edwyn Collins is a truly astonishing and eye-opening book. It’s also a very very frightening bit of work, and not the sort of thing you really want to be reading if someone close to you is lying ill in hospital with a life-threatening condition.
I’m sure most regular TVV readers are familiar with the basic facts, but here’s a quick resume of what I knew before picking up the hardback.
In February 2005, Edwyn Collins suffered a stroke which left him seriously ill in a London hospital. He was in a coma and required major brain surgery to stop internal bleeding which threatened to kill him. His recovery was hampered by him contracting MRSA, but in the fullness of time, he got back home, and thanks to some fantastic TLC from his partner Grace, their son Will and many other members of his family and his close friends, not to mention many hours of therapeutic treatment, he made a remarkable recovery which allowed him to get back on stage again in late 2007 and to then go on tour in the summer of 2008.
If only it had been that simple……
Opening with a very short prologue that asks the reader to imagine you not having any more thoughts, the book then looks back at the early part of Edwyn’s career with Orange Juice and the circumstances which brought him and Grace together for the first time in 1980, leading to them deciding to live together some five years later. From the outset, Grace was an essential part of Team Edwyn – she was his full-time manager before they got together as a couple, and she shared his woes and worries as he went out of fashion post-Orange Juice but never ever giving up on his immense talent, even when his records were selling to almost no-one.
The world-wide success of the single A Girl Like You in 1994/95 changed everything, setting them, and new son Will, up for life in terms of financial security. It also gave Edwyn the opportunity to make and produce music as and when he liked from the comfort of his own and much-in-demand studio. By early 2005, life seemed quite uncomplicated. Edwyn was 45 years of age, an elder and much respected statesman in music, still recording new songs but under no pressure to come up with the hits. Indeed, there was a great deal of satisfaction with the new songs recently recorded and about to go into the post-production for a new LP which would be followed by the inevitable tour and other promotional work.
But then Grace came home on at around 7pm on the night of Sunday 20th February 2005 after picking up her car that had been left at a friend’s house after a party she and Edwyn had attended the night before – and discovered him lying semi-conscious and distressed on the living room floor….
Much of the book deals with the next few months as Edwyn tries to battle back from the stroke. Grace writes with a directness and clarity that is utterly refreshing, and she is never over-dramatic about events. She gives a great deal of praise to the medical and nursing staff involved in saving Edwyn’s life, but without ever making them appear as saints. At the same time, she also paints a very distressing picture of a medical system that contributes more to a crisis than it does resolve it.
Grace was fortunate in having some immediate family members who work in medicine, and so she could often talk to someone and try to get an alternative view. Grace was also able to devote 100% of her own energy to be with Edwyn over an extended period of time – a luxury very rarely afforded to most wives/husbands/partners. If she had been in a position where she had taken all the medical opinions totally at face value, and had been unable to spend as much time by Edwyn’s side in the very early days, it is quite likely that everyone would have given up the fight…but they battled through all the obstacles and barriers placed in their way, and slowly his recovery began.
But just as Edwyn was about to be moved out of general care into a specialist unit where his therapy would be intense, there was a setback that made the original stroke seem a bit like a pleasant Sunday stroll in the sunshine round – the contraction of the superbug MRSA. What follows really is the stuff of nightmares……
I’m not spoiling anything by revealing that in the fullness of time, Edwyn faced up to and defeated death for a second time. His rehabilitation is covered in great depth and compassion. Grace doesn’t hide from the fact that this was an immense strain on her and Will, and describes some unpleasant family exchanges with an admirable honesty that brought a lump to the throat of this particular reader. I’m sure most of us by now have been in difficult circumstances when someone close is being treated for an illness, and reading many of Grace’s lines brought back a lot of memories of watching loved ones painfully tear themselves up trying to work out what course of action is the best way forward.
As a long-time fan of Edwyn Collins, I would love to have discovered that his recovery turned out to be a smooth and straight-forward process, with him taking his medicine and undergoing his therapy without complaint or giving anyone any cause for concern, and indeed Grace could have easily painted such a rosy picture with very few of us being any the wiser. That she doesn’t is testament to just how good a book this is, and helps the reader gain a much better understanding of just how remarkable it is that Edwyn has the ability nowadays to take to the stage and entertain us.
Having been lucky enough to see him perform three times over the past 12 months I thought that Edwyn – not withstanding the very clear mobility and speech difficulties he still has – was almost completely rehabilitated. Grace’s book reminds everyone that there is still a long way to go. It also reminds us that what Edwyn and so many others close to him have achieved over the past couple of years is quite miraculous – but it has all been through grit, graft and guts, not to mention a lot of Grace.
2025 Postscript
Just over twenty years later, and Edwyn has released a new album and completed a UK tour for which there was nothing but love and praise from fans and critics alike. There are three shows scheduled to take place in Austria at the end of next month, after which he should be able to take a well-earned retirement from live performances. There’s now been five studio albums since the near-death experience, although the first of them, Home Again (2007), had seen much of its work completed before he took ill.
There have been numerous live shows almost each and every year, including lengthy tours in each of 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2025, while he has travelled all over Europe and played in America and Australia. All the while, he has been closely supported by Grace and Will, both of whom were selling the merch on the recent UK tour, while Andy Hackett, Sean Read and Carwyn Ellis have been constant companions in the studio and out on the road, with many others, too many to mention, helping, assisting and contributing along the way.
There was also a documentary film, The Possibilities Are Endless, released in 2014 which sought to tell the story of his recovery and comeback – and if you want to know why the film has that particular title, well you can find out through the book (albeit typing the phrase into any search engine will reveal all).
I know that Edwyn Collins is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that there are many who have always found his vocal mannerisms and delivery to be an acquired taste. But you don’t need to be a fan of the music to appreciate the story that’s told within the pages of this book. At times, it is not an easy or comfortable read, but ultimately, it’s a true tale about love, sheer bloodymindedness, resilience and courage, and one which comes with a happy ending.
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Searching For The Truth (from the album Losing Sleep, 2010)
The book can be bought in many places, but I’d recommend doing so direct from Edwyn and Grace’s online store. Click here for info.
Thank You.
JC
#12: What Presence?! : Orange Juice (Polydor, OJ6, 1984)
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 