Part autobiography, part analysis, part philosophy, part polemic, this little book explores the disquiet and despair that has coloured the author's life from childhood, and through which the malignancy of the modern world is filtered. It continues the author's journal entries begun in his previous book, Another Grief Observed, written in the months after the death of his wife in 2014. The exploration of despair is the exploration of the human condition and how self- conscious, sentient beings can face the inevitability of suffering.