Ewan Bowlby was one of the most promising young theologians of his generationFootnote ¹ He took a first-class degree from Cambridge and a PhD from St Andrews. Tragically, he died at 27 years of age, some 10 years after a brain tumour was first diagnosed. Rowan Williams, Bowlby’s Cambridge supervisor, begins this book with a foreword describing Bowlby as ‘[a] genuine theological thinker in the academic context’ and as someone who lived God’s grace ‘in the unplanned interruptions of insight, joy, urgency [and] immersion in the moment’. Williams speaks of one not being in control of one’s living and dying yet ‘making something new and unique out of it all’. (7, 8) This was Bowlby. Together with its 36 pages of amplifying endnotes, this deeply moving book is in two main parts. The first has two significant autobiographical chapters tracking personal highs, lows, hopes, dreams, and denials, and also Bowlby’s increasing recognition of his cancer and the sequential impact of aggressive treatments.

Bowlby offers energetically open self-reflection yet commendably little, if any, self-absorption. Presented chronologically, the book tracks his respect and need for relationships with those who could help and work with him, alongside those with and for whom he could give of himself. He writes, poignantly noting the personal impact of his cancer upon academic study, ‘I believe the academic ideal of a “rational”, detached researcher observing in an impartial manner is deceptive and detrimental … there is always a personal dimension to … research … these two strands of my existence … uniting in a single search’. (81) The second part of Borrowed Stories is based on Bowlby’s doctoral thesis at St Andrews. Here the title Borrowed Stories gains traction. Bowlby realized that by ‘borrowing’ stories from elsewhere (books, people, TV and films), he gained a vocabulary and a capacity to verbalize what he was going through as his cancer took increasing hold. As a practising Christian and acute theological thinker, each strand informed his doctoral research. So the key to Part 2, and the starting point for Bowlby’s research, was his assertion that ‘the emphases within modern medicine on objectivity, clinical science and empirical data have left little room for patients’ personal, subjective spiritual concerns to be addressed’. (99) His approach involved groups of cancer sufferers looking at fictional narratives, television and film productions, and artworks. Bowlby recognizes the possibility of risk. Whilst, for example, humour could occasion upset, nevertheless ‘levity and laughter’ ‘allow … different ways of harnessing the power of comedy to change a life affected by cancer … testing out how humour might add to their own search for meaning’. (161) His discussion and ‘focus group’ insights, online and in-person, together with his contextualizing reflections, evolve through successive chapters in Part 2.

Bowlby’s concern is pastoral – namely the needs of those for whom life’s hoped-for anticipations are deflected or dashed through the onset of the life-limiting length and capacity that terminal cancer brings. He is not deflected or distracted by slippery or elusive definitions. He sees the manifold understanding of ‘spiritual care’ as a potential whereby to apply its imprecision with tested qualitative research. His target is narrative and, empirical data supporting insights, which he considers necessary for those having to redefine life-meaning as cancer progresses. Art and music therapy are long-established in this area. But if the cancer sufferer is too weak or anxious to be creative in either, might instead easily accessible sentimental television programmes suggest a narrative that offers a story to be borrowed and reshape meaning in someone’s life that, through cancer, is neither what it was nor what it was yet hoped it would be? Bowlby persuasively argues so. Sensitive person and context-based methodology are required for the arts-based approach advocated for dealing with life-changing cancer. He develops this from his own experience and from his discussion and focus groups with experienced multi-agency practitioners in cancer care.

Bowlby’s doctoral research followed requirements prescribed by his university. Designed for wider consumption, Borrowed Stories is freed from those constraints. This book will challenge academics who view their enterprise as separate from personal life. It will challenge clinicians, paramedical and nursing staff who consider that recounting technical detail about a patient’s condition to the patient is a sufficient and satisfactory way of explaining the condition. It will challenge pastors and chaplains to rediscover ancient tools of art and narrative in a modern context, thereby giving the person they are attending a language to borrow from and thus to discover meaning both in the moment and for what lies ahead. It will encourage cancer sufferers’ friends and families to value what is pleasing, meaningful and sentimental in visual and literary media as ways of going deeper into a discursive, exploratory relationship with those whose lives intersect with disease.

Is this book ‘theology’? If one is looking for doctrinal explication, biblical analysis or church history, it is not. But if one is seeking an approach for the pastoral care of someone who is terminally ill, then, within broad theological parameters and eschewing academic detachment, it is theology. Borrowed Stories shows God at work.