Author Julian Barnes: 'I contemplated suicide after wife's death' Booker prize-winning author Julian Barnes contemplated suicide after the death of his wife, his new memoir has revealed. Pat Kavanagh, the author's literary agent and his wife of 30 years, died of a brain tumour in 2008. In Levels of Life, due for release next month, Barnes writes: "The question of suicide arrives early, and quite logically... I knew soon enough my preferred method - a hot bath, a glass of wine next to the taps, and an exceptionally sharp Japanese carving knife. I thought of that solution fairly often, and still do. But he went on to say he now has a "firm argument" against suicide, as he is Kavanagh's "principal rememberer." In passages seen by The Telegraph, the Arthur & George author recalls a dinner party with three of his friends, accusing them of being cowards for not daring to speak his late wife's name. "I mentioned her name; no one picked it up," he said. I did it again, and again nothing. Perhaps the third time I was deliberately trying to provoke, being p***** off at what struck me not as good manners but cowardice. Afraid to touch her name, they denied her thrice, and I thought the worse of them for it. Barnes has previously spoken of his support for assisted suicide, saying: "I think it's terrible that people have to go to Switzerland and have their relatives threatened with lawsuits or criminal prosecution when they are obviously of sound mind but terrifyingly unsound body." Levels of Life, the writer's follow-up to his 2011 Booker winner The Sense of an Ending, is split into three parts covering "ballooning, photography" and "love and grief."