Right. Enough of the Me Me Me. There are lots of great books out there apart from mine (!). I make no claim to delightfully witty language here - I’m just too preoccupied - but I must thank these authors for increasing my understanding of things, and taking me away for a while.
I’ve already mentioned The Not-So-Invisible Woman by Suzanne Portnoy, (the wide-ranging sexual adventures of a middle aged single mother), The Long Exile by Melanie McGrath, (the shameful and tragic story about the relocation of Canadian Inuit to the Arctic) and Daddy’s Girl (the story of a sadomasochistic partnership, but also a lot more than that) by Stella Black. All come highly recommended.
Take A Girl Like Me: Life With George, by Diana Melly.
This is a relentless and moving memoir of someone who got going very young, and arrived at the perfect moment for the sixties and everything that happened after that. Being married to George Melly was about the most mixed blessing anyone could have. Perhaps it was having children so young that centred Diana Melly, despite the whirling boho madness that followed her husband around like Pig Pen’s dust cloud. I bought my copy from the Oxfam bookshop, which is where I get most of my books. In the front it is signed ‘For Jill. With love from Diana. I hope you enjoy this as much as I am loving yours.’ Have I found myself a signed copy? Or is it just a present from a Diana to a friend called Jill, and they have a shared love of giving each other books. I hope the latter, really.
My Year Off: Rediscovering Life After A Stroke by Robert McCrum
For obvious reasons, I ordered this book soon after I got out of hospital, but found myself unable to read it for a few weeks. It’s a pretty detailed account of his stroke, which was far worse than mine, and his recovery. I must thank him for going into so much detail, and also about the effect it all had on his relationships. The world needs more stroke books like this. (Yes, I have read the Goldman biog of Lenny Bruce. Christ, I actually wrote ‘Lenny Henry’ there; I swear I am losing the plot.)
The only aspect of this book that troubled me slightly was the fortress of privilege that surrounded him. Of course I can only be pleased for someone with a nice house, supportive family, loving wife, so many famous and well-connected friends, and such extensive private health insurance - but it brings on a slight chill, because it reminds me that I have read very few published accounts of serious illness that don’t involve private health insurance. In the US it’s a given, but if anyone can think of any UK ones please drop me a line.
The Rabbi’s Daughter by Reva Mann
Reva Mann is the granddaughter of the chief Rabbi of Israel, and was once a serious wild child. Then she went to Israel and, in search of a high that wasn’t chemical, joined an ultra-orthodox seminary, in order to turn herself into a good, religious, Jewish wife. Some of what she writes makes me want to shout in frustration, especially the scene with a napkin and a lunchtime queue, and the descriptions of obligatory itchy wigs and tan-coloured tights worn in the hot Jerusalem climate. With great emotional openness, she charts her journey through her relationships, with men and with her parents. I learned a lot from this book. It must have hit certain sections of the community very hard, but there were things, I suspect, that needed saying. Some of what she writes is also very sad, but I am in awe of her dedication to life lived as a journey.
Mother’s Ruin by Nicola Barry
An account of growing up in the 50s and 60s with a mother who was a full-on alcoholic, and a distant, enabling father. It is a nightmare from beginning to end, really, with her disability as a child, abuse by a carer, the mother needing constant care - you can almost smell the vomit and spilled food - the undermining father and the effect it has on her as an adult, including her own brush with alcoholism. Bravely she admits near the end of the book that her parents really were responsible for a lot of her emotional problems, and it’s refreshing to hear that honesty, in a world where few will admit that. (Ignore the gruesome cover of the paperback, which is trying to cash in on the mis-mem child abuse memoir bandwagon).
Shoot the Damn Dog - A Memoir of Depression by Sally Brampton
You don’t need a lecture from me here about depression. Eagle eyed readers may have spotted that this what Cleaning Up is really about. This book is about a really terrible four-year period in the author’s life, where nothing worked, neither pills nor therapy, and she fell into drinking as well. She describes brilliantly the sheer blank horror of living with despair when there is no immediate reason to pay other people off with. I’m glad it has a happy ending. I’m also glad there is an increasing number of books on depression being written - and published.
Dandy In The Underworld by Sebastian Horsley
After I’d got over the sense of suffocating under all the aphorisms - editor, where are you? - I really enjoyed this book, and it made me feel curiously energised, even though it involves drug addiction, distant, useless parents, voluntary crucifixion, and a general sense of someone creating himself out of a black hole of rejection. But I wonder about some of the detail. Did Jimmy Boyle really bugger him? Is he not worried that he will end up encased in concrete, ’sleeping with the fishes’? Perhaps that is the author’s last wish, to be entombed at the point of death, wearing a suit of his own design (with fabric-covered shirt buttons of course), and left to rot prettily somewhere in the Medway area, being penetrated by eels.
