ReviewSaturday 27 March 2021 – Issue № 166

Maggie O’ Farrell The Hamnet author on grief, art and writing a Shakespearean love story

‘If there is one deep regret of my life, it is that I’ve never done a book of a big idea. Nature works in small ideas, ReviewSaturday 27 March 2021 – Issue № 166 little adjustments.’ — Richard Mabey, page 25

Contents The week in books ...... 04 The books that made me by Vivian Gornick ...... 05

COVER STORY Maggie O’Farrell ...... 06

Book of the week: Philip Roth: The Biography by Blake Bailey ...... 10

Nonfi ction reviews The Truth About Modern Slavery by Emily Kenway ...... 12 My Rock’n’Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn ...... 13 Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli ...... 14 Revolutions: How Women Changed the World on Two Wheels by Hannah Ross ...... 15

Fiction reviews Names of the Women by Jeet Thayil...... 16 The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox ...... 17 Children’s and teenagers’ books of the month ...... 18

INSIDE STORY Young poets on the Amanda Gorman eff ect ...... 20

BOOKS ESSAY How to be free by Sam Byers ...... 22

INTERVIEW Richard Mabey on nature and the pandemic ...... 24

Tsitsi Dangarembga on writing Nervous Conditions, plus Tom Gauld ...... 26

COVER PHOTOGRAPH Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 3 ¶ Forewords

dismantle its tropes and The week in books limitations, in inspiring and experi mental ways. 27 March In The Dream House does this in such an explosive, deft manner. It is both a memoir of abuse and Rathbones Folio ment and lyricism. coercion, with all the prize is a Dream From eight, we whittled attendant pain and Ask writers to read 80 down the list to just one. horror (but this doesn’t books in four months Carmen Maria Mach ado’s acknowledge its ambi- and not everyone will memoir In the Dream tion, or resistance to jump at the chance, House was on my and conformity), and a queer but the opportunity my fellow judges Jon love story that turns to encoun ter work you McGregor and Roger toxic . Memoir is one might have missed is Rob inson’s lists from genre, but Machado hard to resist. The most the start . (below left) splinters her Evaristo had always enjoyable aspect of Memoir has always story into many shards: rebelled creatively judging the Rathbones been such an intransi- stoner comedy, Star Trek against the mainstream Folio prize is also the gent term, implying a epi sode, lesbian pulp, in her career, as she most challeng ing: novels unilateral, confessional road trip. It’s an unforget- sought to explore and memoir are con- story, but more recently, table, often uneasy read, “untold” stories, and sidered alongside poetry writers have begun to and was u nanimously that Manifesto would collec tions, short stories chosen to become our see her using her own and essays. Apart from deserving winner. experiences to off er the huge sweep of styles Sinéad Gleeson “a vital contribution to and form, there’s a current conversations dizzying mix of brevity A manifesto around social issues such and expansiveness (a 46- from Evaristo as race, class, feminism, page pamphlet , a 900- Bernardine Evaristo, who sexuality and ageing”. page novel by a previous became the fi rst black Out in October, it is “a Booker prize winner). woman to win the unique book about stay- The books on this Booker prize for Girl, ing true to yourself and year’s shortlist diff ered Woman, Other in 2019, to your vision”, and in it in every way – subject is turning to nonfi ction Evaristo will reveal “how matter, format, language in the forthcoming to be unstoppable – in – but were united by Manifesto. Hamish your craft, your work,

GETTY/ISTOCKPHOTO; NIALL CARSON/PA NIALL GETTY/ISTOCKPHOTO; their narrative commit- Hamilton said that your life”. Alison Flood Shedding WORD OF THE WEEK Have you checked whether you’re shedding lately? It was recently reported that StevenSteven PPooleoole ““viralviral sshedding”hedd of Sars-CoV-2 is strongest in the afternoon. Pleasingly, the OED notes that ““shedding” can also mean “a collection of sheds”, such as David Cameron mmight compose his memoirs in – but that is not the sense we want now. WhereasWhereas your garden variety “shed” is an old English variant of the word “shade”, ttheh verb “to shed” derives from Old English scēadan, from a Germanic rGermanic rooto meaning “to divide or separate”. An early sense in English was aagricultural,gricultura as farmers would (and might still) speak of shedding sheep into seseparateparate ppense , or shedding calves from cows. From there “shed” acquires other senses, of pparting hair, pouring forth (as fi shes do their spawn, observed a 16th-centu16th-centuryr commentator), spilling liquid (or shedding blood, or tears), or emanatinemanatingg ssound or heat. In modernmoder times, companies often speak euphemistically of “shedding jjobs” insteadobs” instea of fi ring people, as though human beings are dead leaves or pet hair. We mmightig also shed our misconceptions, but shedding virus does not, lamentabllamentably,amentably rid us of it. The books that made me ¶

went to work for a non-profi t organisation set to ‘I couldn’t fi nish Michelle defend the people on death row in the south. The Obama’s Becoming’ story is enough to break your heart 15 times over. His description makes it sound like South Africa before Vivian Gornick apartheid ended. A nightmare. A wonderful book. The book I couldn’t fi nish Michelle Obama’s autobiography, Becoming . Yes, The book I am currently reading she’s a very nice woman but I found the book tedious, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee . I had and it just didn’t hold my interest. never read anything by Lee before. I’ve only read 50 The book I’m ashamed not to have read or 60 pages, but her style is immensely appealing. Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I’ve started it She hits that marvellous conversational style. I like 100 times over – I just can’t get into it. Fitzgerald’s work and it’s a pleasure seeing how she The book I give as a gift developed. I’m enjoying it very much. Giving a book is like giving any other kind of gift, you The book that changed my life try to keep in mind what the recipient will like – not I was well into my 30s when I read The Little Virtues what you like. But it always has to be something I by Natalia Ginzburg and as soon as I began I felt consider substantial. myself deeply connected. It isn’t that it’s the greatest My earliest reading memory book in the world at all, but for me it was vital. I felt Little Women by Louisa May Alcott . Our house was she was showing me the type of writer I had it in me full of books, but I don’t remember any childhood to be. I rere ad it quite a lot, and I’m always amazed by stories like Winnie-the-Pooh. I remember fairytales what she is able to accomplish. She is a great writer. like the Grimms’, but the fi rst time I was really The book I think is most overrated impressed with the experience of reading was Little A Sport and A Pastime by James Salter is immensely Women. It went right into me. overrated. I could have picked 100 books like that, My comfort read but this one has been stuck in my craw for a long time. The Odd Women by George Gissing . There was a time The last book that made me laugh when I read that book every six months – usually in Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer is a brilliant book. For the winter – for quite a number of years. It’s a book me, the best thing he ever wrote. A little bit of genius, that I treasure to this day. it made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. The last book that made me cry Vivian Gornick’s Taking a Long Look is published by Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson . It’s written by an Ivy Verso. She has received a Windham-Campbell prize

PHILIPPE MATSAS/OPALE PHILIPPE League educated, middle class black lawyer who 2021 for nonfi ction.

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 5 ¶ Cover story ‘Severe illness refi gures you – it’s like passing through a fi re’ Maggie O’Farrell refl ects on the life-threatening virus that shaped her writing, the superstitions that held her back, and why her prize-winning novel Hamnet speaks to our times. By Lisa Allardice

aggie O’Farrell found the Women’s prize last year . “I felt as if I’d been in the prospect of writing the central coolest gang all summer,” she says of being on the scenes of her prize-winning shortlist, the fi nal announcement of which was novel Hamnet , in which a delayed until September due to the virus. She found mother sits helplessly by the out she had won after being persuaded to “pop back” M bedside of her dying son, so on to a Zoom call (she was in her pyjamas and the cat traumatic that she couldn’t had just been sick). It was the fi rst time she had been write them in the house. Instead, she had to escape shortlisted, which seems remarkable for an author to the shed, and “not a smart writing shed like Philip of eight elegant novels, whose writing life spans the Pullman’s”, she says, “but a really disgusting, spid ery, 25 years of the prize itself. It is undoubtedly the novel manky potting shed, which has since blown down of O’Farrell’s career so far (there was much indigna- in a gale”. And she could only do it in short bursts tion on Twitter that it didn’t make the Booker longlist) of 15 or 20 minutes before she would have to take a and its release in paperback this week is sure to break walk around the garden, and then go back in again. the hearts of many more readers. The novel, a fi ctionalised account of the de ath “I think I’ve written three books instead of writing of Shakespeare’s only son from the bubonic plague Hamnet,” she jokes, from her living room – she lives (his twin sister Judith survived) and an at times in Edinburgh with her husband, the novelist William almost unbearably tender portrayal of grief, was Sutcliff e, and their three children. Her study is too fi rst published a year ago. An interlude halfway untidy to do interviews, she says, and I’m guessing through, which follows the journey of the plague too private – she describes herself as a “very secretive” in 1595 from a fl ea on a monkey in Alexandria to a writer. We are talking on the fi rst morning that cabin boy back to London and eventually to Stratford, Scottish schools are allowed to open, and the house is was referred to by an American journalist as “the “weirdly quiet”. As writers, she and Sutcliff e are both contact tracing chapter”. “It certainly wasn’t con- used to working from home, ceived as that when I wrote it,” the author says of the ‘If I’m able to spend but she survived the last extraordinary coincidence of her novel, set more than an hour a day with year by insisting on a sacro- 400 years ago, landing in the middle of the pandemic . my book , then I can sanct daily mini mum: “If Hamnet went on to beat Booker-winning novels just about stay sane’ I’m able to spend an hour by Hilary Mantel and Bernardine Evaristo to win the … Maggie O’Farrell a day with my book, 

6 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 PHOTOGRAPH Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian Cover story ¶

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 7 ¶ Cover story Maggie O’Farrell

 then I can just about stay sane,” she says. After years of compulsive reading around the This is not the fi rst time she has written the story subject (she has a Hamlet shelf in her study), she of a life seen through the lens of death. Her offb eat grew increasingly frustrated both by the way in memoir I Am, I Am, I Am – which documents her own which Hamnet had been overlooked by scholars, 17 brushes with mortality, including a binoculars- his death often dismissed as an inevitability of the wielding strangler, a couple of near-drownings, high child mortality rate and their unwillingness to a botched caesarean, and acute encephalitis as a child recognise the personal signifi cance of Shakespeare – was a surprise bestseller in 2017. Reading between naming his greatest tragedy after him. “Come on! It’s the near-misses, you learn that the now 48-year-old the same name.” Hamnet is her attempt to give this Irish-British author (she calls herself “a hyphenated boy, “consigned to being a literary footnote … a pres- person”) was born the middle of three sisters in ence and a voice. To say he was important and that he Northern Ireland, but that much of her child hood was not just another Elizabethan child statistic, and was spent in south Wales, until the family moved that without him we wouldn’t have Hamlet and we to Scotland when she was 12. She attended two probably wouldn’t have Twelfth Night.” comprehensives, “one frightening and bewildering, She may have intended to place Hamnet centre one less so”, before going to Cambridge to study stage, but the character who steals the show is English, where she met her future husband (referred undoubtedly Agnes (more usually known as Anne) to as “my friend” or “a man” – rather like that other Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, in O’Farrell’s incarn- Will, who remains nameless throughout Hamnet). ation a bewitching free spirit, who is more than a Her subjects have included motherhood, marital match for the “Latin tutor”. She got “slightly derailed” breakdown and madness – the lives of girls and with anger at the way in which scholars “and writers women, to borrow an Alice Munro title (a copy of of Oscar-winning fi lms” have misrepresented her Munro’s Collected Stories was O’Farrell’s castaway (with the notable exception of Germaine Greer’s book choice when she was a guest on Desert Island “brilliant” Shakespeare’s Wife). “We are constantly Discs this week – a sure sign of cultural approbation; told this narrative about her: that she was a peasant; she also chose the Pogues, Chopin and Radiohead). that she was illiterate; that she trapped this boy gen- Her other most straightforwardly historical novel, ius into marriage. She was this older woman, she was The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, explores the plight a strumpet. There are lines in books by very respec- of women incarcerated in 1930s Ireland and England ted biographers saying she was ugly. He hated her. for the crime of being diff erent; The Hand That First There’s not a single shred of evidence for any of that.” Held Mine, which interweaves the stories of a dazed The novel is not just a fi ctional rehabilitation of new mother in present-day London and a young Agnes but also of their relationship, re jecting the graduate looking for adventure in arty 1950s Soho, notion that he ran away to London to escape his won the Costa novel award in 2010 . family: “I think he was devoted to them.” O’Farrell’s Although she bristles at the term “domestic joyful version of their love story, told in fl ashback fi ction”, Hamnet is an undeniably domesticated take alongside the painful last days of their son, off ers the on the Shakespeare story, with much of the action reader some reprieve. “I thought, I’ve got to pull out set not in the Globe or a London tavern, but in the all the stops here,” she admits. “This is the man who kitchen, bedroom and garden of an Elizabethan wrote the greatest lines about love in all its forms.” Stratford cottage.Like Mantel, who in her own words, It was a sweltering day when she fi nally sat down “decided to march on to the middle ground of English to write, which seemed fi tting as Hamnet died in history and plant a fl ag”, O’Farrell pulls off the August; although the cause of death is uncertain, equally audacious trick of making a historical giant “it was probably a plague year, which usually meant (the greatest English writer of all time – no pressure) a hot summer”. Abandoning an earlier version, she intimately real, both novelists deftly deploying the wrote the opening scene with Hamnet entering the continuous present tense to compelling eff ect: “A boy house of his glove-maker grandfather, and “it was like is coming down a fl ight of stairs.” But where Mantel’s a key turning in a lock … It was the right time in my life Thomas Cromwell remains a public as well as a private and it was the right time in fi gure, O’Farrell’s Shakespeare is relegated to a ‘I wanted to ask the chronology of the story.” supporting role, known only as “the Latin tutor”, questions about One factor preventing “her husband” or “the father”. where art comes her from writing Hamnet She fi rst had the germ of the idea at school, when from, where was “a kind of weird an English teacher mentioned the existence of maternal superstition”: like Shakespeare’s son, called Hamnet, who had died aged writing comes Shakespeare she has a boy 11, four or fi ve years before the the playwright wrote from, or why we and two girls. The novel Hamlet. She remembers sitting in a chilly Scottish need to do it – how cleverly subverts his comic classroom and putting her fi nger over the letter “L” it can come from gender-swapping, mistaken- on her copy of the play (the two names “were entirely a painful place’ identity tricks to tragic eff ect interchangeable” at the time). “The idea of this boy when Hamnet takes his and of his name being used by his father just got twin Judith’s place on her under my skin. I could never forget about it.” death bed. O’Farrell couldn’t

8 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Cover story ¶

book”, and she enjoyed working with illustrator Daniela Terrazzini. She is just fi nalising the edits on her second children’s book and has already started on a third. “It uses completely diff erent muscles to writing a novel.” She likes to say that a novel “chooses you” rather than the other way round. “I always try to write the one that I can’t not write. The one shouting the loudest.”. But after fi nishing Hamnet she wasn’t sure where to go next: she had two ideas and began writing both up at two diff erent desks in her “very small” study. This trick had worked for her before, but one day just before the fi rst lockdown she was wait- ing in the car to pick up her daughter after a play date,

TRISTRAM KENTON/THE GUARDIAN KENTON/THE TRISTRAM when she was struck by another idea. “I thought: ‘Oh my God, that’s what I need begin writing until her son, now 17, was safely past the ‘Shakespeare named to do! Forget these other age at which Hamnet died and she thinks she might his greatest tragedy two novels, I’ll just write not have written it at all had it been Judith. Her eldest after his son Hamnet’ this one.’” So she is now daughter was born with an immunological disorder. Patrick Stewart, deep into her ninth. “We live in a state of high alert,” O’Farrell writes in her front, and David That is an impressively memoir. “I have to know where she is and who she Tennant in an RSC productive year, not to men- is with at all times.” She is also a surviving twin, an production of Hamlet tion homeschooling three IVF baby, born after O’Farrell was told she wasn’t children. “I think all books pregnant. “In any fairytale, getting what you wish for are written against com pletely impossible odds,” she comes at a cost,” she writes. “It was quite conscious in says. “The odds change.” She wrote her fi rst two novels my mind that the female twin lives,” she says now. while working full-time on the arts desk of the Inde pen- The vivid descriptions of the twins’ feverishness dent on Sunday: “I was in my 20s, in London, out every surely recall her own experience of viral encephalitis night and didn’t get to sleep before two in the morning. as an eight-year-old, when she woke up one summer I look back and think: ‘How the hell did I do that?’” morning with a headache and “the world looked Her husband is always her fi rst reader: she keeps a diff erent”. Later in hospital, she overheard the nurse cast of his teeth on her desk to remind her that he can whisper to another child: “Hush, there’s a little girl be quite a harsh critic. “You need somebody who is dying in there,” and was shocked to discover that she going to tell you where it is working and where you was talking about her. “I think anyone who has been are making an absolute idiot of yourself.” But in through a really severe illness knows that it completely general, she loves writing. “I fi nd it very sustaining refi gures you,” she says. “It is a bit like passing rather than depleting. It gives me a means in which through a fi re.” A journalist recently asked her if she to make sense of life.” could turn back time would she erase the illness. She It is not giving too much away (the tragedy happens replied: “No, because it is who I am. It made me who in the middle, after all) to say that Hamnet ends with I am in a lot of ways.” She believes her long convales- a performance of Hamlet. “I wanted to ask questions cence (endless audio books, reading and rereading) about where art comes from, where writing comes and resulting stammer (thinking hard about every from, or why we need to do it,” she says. “How it can word) helped to nurture writerly habits. come from a very painful place, but that’s why we Last November she published her fi rst children’s need to do it.” The play is the thing: like Hamlet book, Where Snow Angels Go, about a girl called Sylvie, eliciting Claudius’s guilt in the mousetrap scene, who, like O’Farrell (and Nina in her 2004 novel, The Hamnet reveals the “huge chasm of grief” behind Distance Between Us) , suff ers a long illness. The snow the play, which takes on a whole new perspective. “It angel is a metaphor for anaphylactic shock, she says, seems very much a one-sided message of a father in and appeared to her in the back of an ambu lance one realm to a son in another.” when her daughter was having a severe allergic Working on her current novel, she needed to know reaction, a dangerous symptom of which is to something about embroidery, which she’s never done suddenly become extremely cold. “When my in her life, so she asked a friend. “We were looking at daughter asked ‘Why is this happening?’ I just said: this beautiful thing she had made and she turned it ‘It’s OK. It’s a snow angel, he’s wrapping his wings over and the back was much more complicated, quite around you.’” This character whom she had con- messy,” she says. “In a sense that’s what grief is: you jured up in desperation “sort of took up residence”. turn love inside out, like a sock or a glove, that’s what O’Farrell thinks she may have encountered him years you fi nd, isn’t it? Grief is just the other side of love ” • earlier when she woke up freezing in the night and decided to check on her son, who was then four and Magg ie O’Farrell will be talking to Lisa Allardice about had been unwell, and found that he had meningitis. Hamnet for the Guardian Live Bookclub on 22 April. Picture book publishers “talk about making a See membership.theguardian.com/event for details.

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 9 enough. “It isn’t fair,” Maggie said, rightly sus pecting Book of that he was sleeping with other women, “You have everything and I have nothing, and now you think you the week can dump me!” In a ploy to hang on to him, she persuaded a pregnant woman to urinate in a jar as part of “a scientifi c experiment”, used the positive result to trick Roth into thinking that she was carrying his child, then agreed to have an abortion if he promised to { Biography } An impressive marry her – which he duly did. account of a literary giant It was three years before he discovered the truth and, furious at being conned so easily, began divorce does not excuse his shocking proceedings. Arguments about alimony were still attitude towards women going on when Maggie was killed in a car crash. Though relieved that the “goyish chaos” she’d Blake Morrison wreaked was behind him, he continued to feel vindictive towards her, and took his revenge in fi ction . Bailey’s version of events leans on Roth’s but “I don’t want you to rehab- he tempers it with extracts from Maggie’s diary, the ili tate me,” Philip Roth most plaintive of them when she realises “Philip instructed Blake Bailey. “Just doesn’t care for me – he’s sorry for me”. make me interesting.” The Roth’s second catastrophe, with Claire Bloom, headline story can’t fail to wasn’t so much the failure of their marriage but how be interesting: lower middle- she wrote about it in her memoir Leaving a Doll’s class grandson of immi- House . In the fl ush of fi rst love he described her as “a Philip Roth: grants writes scandalous great emotional soul-mate” who’d rescued him from The Biography bestseller about masturba- a period of excruciating pain (a back problem which by Blake Bailey, tion, is vilifi ed as a self- plagued him throughout his life). The domestic Jonathan Cape, £30 hating Jew, has two disas- harmony didn’t last. He disliked Bloom’s daughter trous marriages and many Anna living with them in London. And Bloom felt lovers, accumulates a stupendously diverse body of isolated at Roth’s 40-acre farmhouse in rural work (comic, surreal, metafi ctional, naturalistic), Connecticut. Among many points of contention was comes to be seen as the greatest English-language the pass Roth made at Anna’s friend Felicity, which novelist of his day yet never, to his chagrin, wins the outraged all three women but didn’t merit much of Nobel. But Roth wanted nuances, not headlines, an apology from Roth (“What’s the point of having a suggesting that Bailey call his biography “The Terrible pretty girl in the house if you don’t fuck her”). Ambiguity of the ‘I’”. Luckily, that isn’t the title. But Most of Roth’s other relationships were with ambiguity is central to the story, particularly in rela- younger women: “I was forty and she was nineteen. tion to Roth’s treatment of women, in life and in Perfect,” he said of one, though his ideal age gap grew fi ction, which is where the issue of rehabilitation arises as he got older (“A mature woman wouldn’t take your and, as with his peers (Saul Bellow, John Updike and shit,” his analyst told him). He had a theory that sexual Norman Mailer), can’t really be avoided, least of all now. interest wears off after two years, but his 18-year aff air “Always it came back to the women,” Bailey writes, with “Inge”, the model for Drenka in Sabbath’s the fi rst of them Roth’s mother Bess, who if not as Theater , disproved it. Among those he fl irted with or suff ocating as Alex Portnoy’s mother, was so adoring knew as friends were Jackie Kennedy, Mia Farrow, that no subsequent woman in his life could match up. Ava Gardner and Barbra Streisand. Other lovers here While sharing Bess’s devotion to Philip and his go unnamed , though not the Playboy pin-up Alice brother Sandy, her husband Herman left a mark in Denham (Miss July, 1956), who called him, approv- other ways, not least through his work ethic (12-hour ingly, “a sex fi end”, and days, six days a week). “He who is loved by his ‘To let the not Ann Mudge, who was parents is a conquistador,” Roth liked to say. repellent in’ was dropped because her “meek At college he discovered the fun of writing satire a manifesto of his. gentility had begun to bore and, dropping plans to become a “lawyer for the If honesty about him” (she sub se quently underdog”, poured his energy into short stories. attempted suicide). “Bibliography by day, women by night” was the idea, sexual desire got Bailey doesn’t deny but at 23 he met Maggie Martinson, the fi rst of his two him into trouble, Roth’s “breathtaking taste - marital “catastrophes”. A “hard-up loser four years my he accepted lessness towards women”. senior”, whose two kids lived with her ex-husband, it as a price And there were always Martinson was worldlier and more turbulent than any worth paying goatish buddies happy to previous girlfriend. But that was the point: he saw her normalise the misogyny, as a test of his maturity. By the time his fi rst book, from disgruntled divorcees Goodbye, Columbus, made him famous, he’d had whining that their wives

10 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Book of the week ¶

‘Just make me interesting’ Philip Roth in

GETTY New York, 2007

had fl eeced them, through the teaching colleague Blazer appeared in her novel Asymmetry shortly who “pimped” for him, to the artist RB Kitaj who before his death, he approved. would fax him “dashed-off sketches of the decorous He would approve of this biography, too, not Anita Brookner, say, giving blow jobs”. because it’s partial but because Bailey’s industrious- If Roth admirers will fi nd this hard to take, detrac- ness is on a par with his own. With a “mile of fi les” tors can’t ignore how connubial and generous he and boxes to work through, it’s a miracle that he has could be; how ex-lovers spoke warmly of him and pub lished so lucid a book just three years after Roth’s visited his bedside when he was dying; and how death . Among the documents he quotes from is “Notes female writers (including Zadie Smith, Nicole Krauss for My Biographer”, a 295-page rejoinder to Bloom and Mary Karr ) are among his biggest fans. “I don’t that Roth planned to publish till friends and lawyers like the way he writes about women,” Nell Freuden- talked him out of it. Bailey relies on this more than he berger said in a 2012 poll that voted him America’s should, unfairly dismissing her memoir as “scurri- greatest living novelist, “and I don’t like the way I lous”. But given how determined Roth was to control sound complaining about it”. his posthumous reputation, it’s an achieve ment for “To let the repellent in” was a manifesto of his. Bailey to have gained as much distance as he has. And if honesty about male sexual desire got him into The frequency with which Roth fell out with trouble, he accepted it as a price worth paying. people he loved is just one of the many ambiguities Portnoy’s Complaint began the process and Sabbath’s here. The man who liked to quote Flaubert’s dictum Theat er rounded it off . In later novels – American “Be orderly and regular in your life like a bourgeois” Pastoral, The Plot Against America and his last, was drawn to the manic and bacchanalian; published Nemesis, a plague novella – the libido plays less of 31 books but found writing novels “a ghastly protrac- a part and the books are arguably the better for it. ted slog”; studiously avoided having children but Where the young Roth determinedly killed off the doted on other people’s; spoke only English but was Nice Jewish Boy he’d been brought up as, the ageing pas sionate on behalf of non-English writers . Above Roth was nostalgic for his childhood and adolescence. all there was his attitude to women, which a hagio- Bailey’s account of the last years is touching. grapher would try to excuse as typical of the era and Having announced his retirement from writing, Roth an enemy would liken to Harvey Weinstein’s, but was talked of “rambling happily into oblivion”, his battles too uniquely Rothian to be either. “Why do you want behind him. New awards came. Old friendships were to characterise me … as some sort of heartless rapist revived. Young women still appeared on his arm but manqué?” the Roth character, Tarnopol, scolds his nothing happened in bed beyond cuddles. Asked for psychiatrist Dr Spielvogel in My Life As a Man. Some his thoughts on the Nobel prize for literature going to critics will use this biography to do just that. But the Bob Dylan rather than to him, he joked: “It’s OK, but story is more complex – and a lot more interesting. next year I hope Peter, Paul and Mary get it.” When Lisa Halliday’s portrait of him as the elderly Ezra To buy a copy for £26.10 go to guardianbookshop.com.

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 11 pushes people towards ever more dangerous journeys. Nonfi ction At a Global Slavery Index event in 2016 (where Russell Crowe, Tony Blair, Bono and Richard Branson all expressed their commitment to eradicating th e evil), the fi gure of 45.8 million people living in mod ern slavery was cited, but Kenway argues that the numbers are “dodgy” because the concept is so hard to quantify. The catch-all notion of modern slavery embraces { Politics } Governments people working as forced labourers in brick kilns in and celebrities urge an end India, garment factories in Bangladesh, European brothels and in British nail bars. Some of those workers to 21st-century slavery. may have been bought and sold, but most of them But is their talk hollow? could more accurately be described as the poorly paid victims of exploitative employers. Amelia Gentleman Her book is written with the furious impatience of someone who has had to sit through too many hollow, worthy political speeches on the subject. During her time as home Kenway notes wearily how references to the “heroic” secretary and prime mini- achieve ments of William Wilberforce in ending the ster, Theresa May spoke legal trade in human beings are scattered throughout repeatedly about her quest the speeches of modern politicians who are keen to to eradicate the scourge associate their own endeavours with the work of of modern slavery. She 19th-century campaigners. Everyone wanted to be an described it as the “greatest adviser on May’s modern slavery bill, an offi cial tells The Truth About human rights issue of our Kenway; “It was the race to be the next Wilberforce.” Modern Slavery time”, and in 2013 wrote an The narrative around modern slavery is “ignor ance by Emily Kenway, article out lining the impor- cloaked as knowledge” , Kenway argues. Workplace Pluto, £14.99 tance of her modern slavery exploi t a tion could be reduced by better minimum bill, head lined “Modern wage enforcement and strong union action. But the slave drivers, I’ll end your evil trade”. When she left Conserva tive politicians fi ghting against modern offi ce, her supporters pointed to this legislation as slavery are also committed ideologically to reducing her key legacy. levels of business regulation, hostile to migrant How could anyone fi nd fault with such a cause? workers and dislike trade unions. Everyone is against slavery; the new abolitionists Inspection teams have seen funding cuts at just include pop stars, supermodels, billionaires and phil- the time when they are most needed. The average anthropists. Criticising the campaign is like saying one employer can expect an inspection from Her Majesty’s is against motherhood and apple pie, Emily Kenway Revenue and Customs’ wage unit once every 500 writes, before comprehensively unpicking the hypo- years. In 2019, the Employment Agencies Standards crisy that runs through the government’s work in this Inspectorate had 13 staff to cover around 18,000 sector. Her powerful treatise argues that modern employ ment agencies and 1.1 million workers. “This slavery does not really exist as a clear phenomenon, is madness if we supposedly want to ‘end modern but has been seized on to divert attention from the slavery’, that is, reduce exploitation,” Kenway writes. underlying causes of labour exploitation, and to She highlights an offi cial confusion over whether provide moral cover for tighter immigration policies. the victims of modern slavery are victims who need Kenway, who worked as an adviser to the UK’s fi rst rescuing, or if they are in fact immigration off enders anti-slavery commissioner (a position created by who need to be deported. If Britain was really May), has spent years watching, up close, as the issue concerned about assisting the people aff ected, then has been weaponised by politicians for their ulterior it would have a better track record on looking after motives. The experience has made her very cynical the m. But between April 2017 and end of 2018, the about the new abolitionism. Home Offi ce rejected 310 applications for discretionary Once people-traffi cking has been established as a leave to remain and 65 asylum claims made by child serious problem that the Home Offi ce needs to tackle, victims of modern slavery; in 2015 only 12% of adults introducing hostile environment immigration legis- who were offi cially recognised as modern slavery lation can be presented as a reasonable re action. It is a victims were given discretionary leave to remain. logic used also by Donald Trump, whose response to Kenway damns modern slavery legislation with what he described as an “invasion” by human traffi ck- faint praise, concluding it has had “some positive ers on the US-Mexico border is well known. “You need eff ects”. Committed workers in the sector may bridle a physical barrier. You need a wall,” he declared. But at her harsh conclusions, but this assessment of the increased border checks at Calais did not deter the Conservative party’s crusade off ers little to celebrate. people smugglers responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in 2019; the extra security simply To buy a copy for £13.04 go to guardianbookshop.com .

12 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Nonfi ction ¶

As the Go-Betweens’ career progressed, they were { Mu sic } Shy singer meets praised by critics and fellow musicians, but this didn’t gobby drummer – a vivid translate into sales. If building a career felt like an uphill struggle for Forster and McLennan, for Morri- memoir of friendship son it was tougher still. To be a female drummer in and sexism in pop the early 1980s was seen as transgressive, and, what with the muscles, the sweat and the manspreading Fiona Sturges pose, deeply unfeminine. Thorn recalls how Morri- son struck fear into male interviewers whose sexist assumptions she frequently challenged. In March 1983, the singer and If this makes My Rock’n’Roll Friend sound deeply author Tracey Thorn was serious, it isn’t. The author brings wit, candour and sitting in a dressing room vividness to her storytelling, which delights in the at London’s Lyceum theatre more ludicrous aspects of musicians’ lives. She recalls when a woman strode in and a winter in London during which the Go-Betweens asked to borrow a lipstick. shared a fl at with fellow Australians, including Lindy Morrison , drummer in members of the Birthday Party . On Christmas Day, My Rock ’n’ Brisbane art-rockers the Go- Morrison decided to make dinner and, when it was Roll Friend Betweens, made an instant ready, called everyone to the table. As they sat down, by Tracey Thorn, impression on Thorn, who she realised they’d all just shot heroin. “Eyes roll and Canongate, £14.99 was in her second year at heads loll,” Thorn writes. “One of them falls forwards, university and whose band, face squashed fl at against the table cloth. The others Marine Girls, were on the same bill. On the surface, the follow, one by one, slumping in their chairs or resting pair didn’t have much in common. Thorn was shy, quiet heads on elbows. Soon she’s the only one left sitting and sensible; Morrison, who was 10 years her senior, upright, staring ahead at the blasted triumph of the was loud, full of confi d ence and sometimes reck less meal … She pours a glass of red wine, knocks it back, bravado. “It doesn’t occur to me,” Thorn explains, “that and then another. Happy Christmas, you fuckers.” this woman who seems to be my opposite might in fact Thorn and Morrison’s letters to one another prove be my refl ection, that she might have started out very rich material in recording their respective triumphs like me – awkward, insecure, isolated – and has had to and disappointments . Although they have gigged fi ght every step of the way to get to where she is now.” together, holidayed together and got drunk together, My Rock’n’Roll Friend is both a biography of Morri- their lives have unfurled at a distance, some times on son and a memoir of their friendship during which opposite sides of the world. they bonded over books, fi lms and being women in Thorn recalls But Thorn’s interest in a world of men. In her next band, Everything But the how Morrison Morrison’s story goes Girl, Thorn would write the song “Blue Moon Rose” struck fear beyond documenting (“I have a friend and she taught me daring / Threw into male a friendship. A s well as back the windows and let the air in”) about Morrison. providing a portrait of “I am both inside and outside this story,” she observes. interviewers a brilliant musician, the When, in 1979, Morrison met the Go-Betweens’ whose sexist book exposes the sexism singer Robert Forster, she was a part-time actor, a assumptions and hypocrisy of an social worker, and a drummer in and out of assorted she frequently industry, and attempts jazz and punk bands. Her worldliness stood in contrast challenged to right a terrible wrong. to this bookish former boarding-school boy, seven Morrison split up with years her junior, with whom she began a relationship. Forster in 1989 and says With her presence, the she was sacked from the band – which also band over the phone . In the years since, the history included guitarist Grant of the Go-Betweens has been reframed as a duo McLennan – set about featuring Forster and McLennan, with Morrison recording their fi rst relegated to a supporting cast member, or worse, album. It’s with some “the girl friend”. None of this is uncommon: women amusement that Thorn have been written out of history for centuries, their notes how the two men contributions to culture diminished, or viewed imag ined having a solely in relation to the men in their lives. But woman in the band through her entertaining, aff ectionate and righteous would soften its image, book, Thorn invites us to witness her friend in all even though Morrison her gobby glory. In explaining her connection to was “about as soft as a Morrison, she writes, “When I meet her I feel seen.” right hook”. A friend Now she has returned the favour. called the line up “two

ROBYN STACEY ROBYN wimps and a witch”. To buy a copy for £13.59 go to guardianbookshop.com .

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 13 ¶ Nonfi ction

functioning of atoms, the evolution of stars, the forma- { Physics } The genius of tion of galaxies, the primordial universe and the whole Werner Heisenberg, who of chemistry. It makes our computers, washing mach- ines and mobile phones possible. Although it has never developed the quantum theory been found wanting by any experiment, quantum that explains our world theory remains more than a little disturbing for challenging ideas that we have long taken for granted. Manjit Kumar One of the most well-known counterintuitive discoveries was arguably Heisenberg’s greatest act of quantum conjuring. The uncertainty principle forbids, There are two kinds of at any given moment, the precise determination of geniuses, argued the cele- both the position and the momentum of a particle. It br ated mathematician Mark is possible to measure exactly either where a particle Kac. There is the “ordinary” is or how fast it is moving, but not both simultan- kind, whom we could emul- eously. In a quantum dance of give-and-take, the ate if only we were a lot more accurately one is measured the less precisely smarter than we actually are the other can be known or predicted. Heisenberg’s Helgoland because there is no mystery uncertainty prin ciple is not due to any technological by Carlo Rovelli, as to how their minds work. shortcomings of the equipment, but a deep under- translated by After we have understood lying truth about the nature of things. Erica Segre and what they have done, we According to some, including Heisenberg, there is Simon Carnell, believe (perhaps foolishly) no quantum reality beyond what is revealed by an Allen Lane, £20 that we could have done it experiment, by an act of observation. Take Erwin too. When it comes to the Schrödinger’s famous cat trapped in a box. It is argued second kind of genius, the “magician”, even after we that the cat is neither dead nor alive but in a ghostly have understood what has been done, the process by mixture, or super position, of states that range from which it was done remains forever a mystery. being totally dead to comple t ely alive and every Werner Heisenberg was defi nitely a magician, who combi na tion in between conjured up some of the most remarkable insights There is no until the box is opened. into the nature of reality. Carlo Rovelli recounts the quantum reality Rovelli admits he is not an fi rst act of magic performed by Heisenberg in the beyond what is innocent bystander; he has opening of Helgoland, his remarkably wide-ranging revealed by an skin in the game when it new medita tion on quantum theory. comes to trying to unde r- Rovelli has taken the title from the name of the experiment. stand the quantum nature of rocky, barren, windswept island in the North Sea to Take Erwin reality. He is the champion where the 23-year-old German physicist fl ed in June Schrödinger’s of the “relational” inter- 1925 to recover from a severe bout of hay fever and famous cat pretation that maintains in need of solitude to think. It was during these few trapped in a box quantum theory does not days on the island (also called Heligoland) that , on des cribe the way in which completing calculation after calculation, Heisenberg quantum objects manifest made a discovery that left him dizzy, shaken and themselves to “obser vers”, unable to sleep. but describes how every physical object manifests With the light touch of a skilled storyteller, Rovelli itself to any other physical object. reveals that Heisenberg had been wrestling with the Rovelli reveals that he is not afraid to mix quantum inner workings of the quantum atom in which elec- physics and eastern philosophy, something that others trons travel around the nucleus only in certain orbits, have done in the past with little success and attracting at certain distances, with certain precise energies some derision. It says much about him and his thesis before magically “leaping” from one orbit to another. that he is not so easily dismissed. He has help in the Among the questions he was grappling with on Helgo- form of one of the most important texts of Buddhism, land were: why only these orbits? Why only cer tain Mū lamadhyamakakā rikā , or The Fundamental Verses orbital leaps? As he tried to overcome the failure of of the Middle Way. Written in the second century by existing formulas to replicate the intensity of the light the Indian philosopher Nā gā rjuna, it argu es that emitted as an electron leapt between orbits, Heisen- there is nothing which exists in itself, indepen dently berg made an astonishing leap of his own. He deci ded from something else. It’s a perspective that Rovelli to focus only on those quantities that are observable believes makes it easier to think about the quantum – the light an atom emits when an electron jumps. It world. He may be right , but the words of Niels Bohr was a strange idea but one that, as Rovelli points out, still come to mind: “ Those who are not shocked made it possible to account for all the recalcitrant when they fi rst come across quantum theory cannot facts and to develop a mathematically coherent possibly have understood it.” theory of the atomic world. For all its strangeness, quantum theory explains the To buy a copy for £17 go to guardianbookshop.com.

14 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Nonfi ction ¶

Women were active participants in the new cyclo- { Sport } From the Pankhursts mania: the American feminist Susan B Anthony called delivering newsletters to a bicycles “freedom machines” that did “more to eman- cipate women than anything else in the world”. Enthu- racing team in Saudi Arabia ... siasts were often well-heeled: the Duchess of Somerset a history of women on bikes and friends enjoyed night rides through London, Chinese lanterns lighting the way. Eliane Glaser There was resistance. Pioneers were pelted with bricks, eggs and rotten vegetables as they rode. Opponents claimed cycling led to infertility, a manly I’ve been cycling for decades gait, or promiscuity: Robert Dickinson, an American – as a student, commuter gynaecologist, suggested women positioned their and partygoer. I’ve sallied saddles so as to “bring about constant friction over forth in strappy heels and the clitoris and labia”. The sit up and beg position – dorky helmet: returning hardly aerodynamic – was designed to avoid women home late, I’ve dodged foxes developing a “bicycle hump”. while fl ying drunk and euph- Clarion cycling clubs, linked to the socialist weekly Revolutions: How oric down deserted streets. newspaper of the same name, admitted women from Women Changed the I’ve cycled with one hand the start. Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst were Clar- World on Two Wheels holding closed my wrap ionettes , and they rode around distributing news- by Hannah Ross, dress, and with skirt tucked letters. The Women’s Social and Political Union’s arson W&N, £16.99 into tights, or tied in a knot. attacks were also administered on wheels, including I’ve cycled into a lamppost the so-called “pillar-box out rages” of 1913, when at the side of the road while admiring spring trees suff ragettes poured ink and fl ammable liquids – in bloom. I’ve carried a boxed trumpet and a large sometimes using an inner tube – into post boxes. house plant in my basket, and fl ashing bike lights Then there are the racers such as Tessie Reynolds in my mouth. I’ve balanced a week’s shopping on who, in 1893, aged 16, broke the Brighton-London- handlebars, and kneed myself in the bump when Brighton record in her wool knickerbockers . In a 1967 pregnant. And many journeys have been spent mixed race, Beryl Burton was up against the men’s furiously pondering esprit de l’escalier retorts favour ite Mike McNamara . In one of the most legend- following altercations with taxi drivers. ary moments in cycling history, Burton overtook him Cycling for me has never been boring or neutral. and as she did so off ered him a Liquorice Allsort (he A male cyclist is just a bloke on a bike, but a woman took it and thanked her). appears political, independent, a bluestocking, Colourful characters populate this book: in the egregiously sporty, or suspiciously saucy. In this 1990s, the American mountain biker Missy Giove was lik able, informative and barnstorming book, Hannah notable not only for her doughty off -roading – she Ross tells the story of how such meanings have endured an estimated 38 broken bones during her become attached to what is often just the most career – but also for her tattoos, piercings and lucky effi cient way of getting from A to B. charms, including the desiccated body of a pet The historical sections are the most eye-opening. piranha that hung from a neck lace . Reading these The invention of the boneshakers of the 1860s and stories juxtaposed with those of 19th-century trail- penny farthings of the 1870s opened up new vistas of blazers reminded me that where gender equality is transport and recreation: sociologists credit the bicycle concerned, society has with a decrease in genetic faults associated with Photo fi nish done some back-pedalling. inbreeding. The late 19th century witnessed a global Female cyclists in We’re familiar with the “bike boom”: there were weddings on wheels ; even a the Road World restrictions of the past, but christening with baby and nurse arriving on a tandem. Championships not how the y produced vibrant acts of defi ance. In the 1880s, around a third of British and Ameri- can bike owners were female. That proportion is lower today. As a sport, women’s cycling is marred by fewer racing opportunities and less prize money, sponsorship and coverage. Ross highlights inspiring attempts to challenge the under-representation of women – from Mexican-American women reclaiming their LA neigh bourhood on wheels, to eff orts to set up a women’s racing team in Saudi Arabia, to a Rwandan non-profi t (Africa Rising) recruiting black women into the sport. But there’s still a long road ahead.

TIM DE WAELE/CORBIS/GETTY DE TIM To buy a copy for £14.78 go to guardianbookshop.com.

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 15 ¶ Label

naming and fi lling in the backstory of the adulterous Fiction woman Jesus saves from stoning, the maidservant of Caiaphas the high priest, and the wife of the penitent thief crucifi ed alongside Jesus. It’s fascinating to be reminded how little we prop- erly understand one of the foundational stories of western civilisation. And there are moments where the much-pondered events are reframed in a new light. A fascinating but patchy Lazarus comes back from the dead emotionally scarred attempt to reclaim the and turns to drink to blot out the experience. Salome’s dance to win the head of John the Baptist becomes a misrepresented women weird, Cirque de Soleil-like display of erotic contortion. of the New Testament In another nice and oddly plausible touch, Jesus’s sisters characterise him in completely diff erent ways. Marcel Theroux To Assia, he’s a narcissistic, would-be infl uencer, minting “seductive phrases designed to win him more fame and followers”. Lydia, meanwhile, recalls In Names of the Women Jeet “the soft and halting speech that sounds as if it is Thayil reclaims the story of unsure of itself and doubts its own existence”. not only Mary Magdalene Interspersed between the vignettes of the women but of 14 other women who are chapters containing the utterings of Jesus on the play diff erent roles in the cross, seemingly dictated to Mary Magdalene as part gospels. Thayil, best known of a gospel that never made it down to us. “I say unto for the Booker-shortlisted you who hear these words two hundred or two Names of the Women Narcopolis and raised among thousand years after me, what good are the victuals by Jeet Thayil, adherents of the ancient if you cannot eat them, but a stranger eats and is Jonathan Cape, Chris tian com munity in satisfi ed. That is the way of vanity and darkness.” £15.99 Kerala, has read his Bible A little ersatz scripture goes a long way and there is carefully. He also draws on a great deal of this in the book. The Jesus of Thayil’s non-canonical texts such as The Gospel of Thomas, the novel isn’t quite the unpleasant character his sister Acts of Pilate and a fascinating fragment that turned Assia describes, but he’s a less complex and more up in the 19th century called The Gospel of Mary. sanctimonious fi gure than the Biblical Jesus, at times Alongside Mary Magdalene, we meet Jesus’s sisters, coming across as a hysterical adolescent with a martyr Assia and Lydia; his followers Susanna and Joanna; complex. I was also baffl ed by this Jesus’s doctrine. Mary of Bethany and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. “Forgiveness is the recourse of the weak and we are There are female baddies too: Herodias and her daugh- not weak and we must not forgive,” he tells Mary. That ter Salome, who call for the head of John the Baptist. is defi nitely not supported by the gospels, though it Thayil’s argument is with the systemic misogyny may be in Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal. that has marginalised and misrepresented the female While Thayil takes aim at the systemic sexism of the characters in the New Testament. We wrongly rem- Bible, there are other Biblical assumptions he doesn’t ember Mary Magdalene as a prostitute. Her key role question. Names of the Women follows the traditional in the narrative – retold here in a wonderful moment narrative that Jesus represents a break with Judaism of hair-raising strangeness – is to be the fi rst witness for which the Jewish elders to the resurrection. “They will build the Church on Monica Bellucci can’t forgive him. “His story the witness of the women,” Thayil writes, “but they as Mary Magdalene makes Jews want to leave will refuse to record their names.” in The Passion the synagogue and join Where there is no extant material, he fi ctionalises, of the Christ Christ,” says Martha. Well, that’s an interesting assump- tion. The fascinating question of Jesus’s Jewishness – fi rst broached seriously in nonfi ction by Geza Vermes in Jesus the Jew and explored in Naomi Alderman’s novel The Liar s’ Gospel – isn’t touched on here. And once the design of the book becomes clear, there are diminishing returns to unearthing additional neglected female characters. In fact, it reminded me that RM Lamming’s 2005 novel As in Eden had done a similar thing, but with both Old and New Testa ment women. Names of the Women could do with a few more moments that share its simplicity and obliqueness.

ALLSTAR/ICON To buy a copy for £13.59 go to guardianbookshop.com .

16 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Fiction ¶

of work. There is a lot to keep track of here, not only { Fantasy } Politically engaged in terms of characters but in terms of worlds. As and packed with literary Taryn, Shift and a police detective called Berger duck and dive between realities they encounter demons, allusion, this epic of parallel fairy folk, the semi-immortal hybrids known as the worlds is an instant classic Taken, human souls in Purgatory and godly entities in avian form. The strands of real-world myth, Nina Allan folklore and fairytale from which Knox weaves the philosophical rationale behind what is in its appearance and mechanics a classic portal fantasy Elizabeth Knox is the are as richly diverse as her characters. recipient of a multitude Fantastic literature is often decried for being of literary honours in escapist, and while traditional sword and sorcery is her native New Zealand, alive and well, a book like Knox’s off ers the assurance with the kind of popular that a more forward-thinking, experimental strand following that befi ts the of fantasy is possible, and thriving. The greatest luminous quality of her fantasies have always held up a mirror to quotidian The Absolute Book writing. That international reality, and it is to this politically engaged, reality- by Elizabeth Knox, success has thus far been critical, Swiftian strand that The Absolute Book belongs. Michael Joseph, denied her is something While Knox is generous and playful in the worlds £14.99 of a scandal, but with her she creates , her purpose lies in revealing the limits latest work the tide could of enchantment and the moral danger inherent in be about to turn. The Absolute Book has the feel of allowing ourselves to be seduced by easy narratives an instant classic, a work to rank alongside other of power and entitlement. modern masterpieces of fantasy such as Philip There is a genuine feeling of jeopardy, and Knox Pullman’s His Dark Materials series or Susanna shows consummate skill in weaving together the Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. mimetic and the fantastic; with its surveillance When Taryn Cornick is still a teenager, her older drones, server farms, sister Beatrice is killed in a hit-and-run. The perpe- While Knox is mobile phones, police trator, Timothy Webber, is sentenced to six years in generous and procedure and celebrity jail ; Taryn remains convinced that her sister’s death playful in the culture, this is a 21st- was not an accident, but murder. Soon after his release, worlds she century narrative whose Beatrice’s killer is found dead in a ditch not far from social and political ills the site of the original accident. creates, her (Brexit, rightwing popu- Meanwhile, a missing witness to Beatrice’s death purpose lies lism, climate cata strophe) has fi nally resurfaced. His name is Shift, and he is not in revealing are not simply topical quite human. He explains to Taryn that the world she the limits of background but knows is not the only world, and that the equilibrium enchantment central concerns. between human reality and the fairy realm is becoming The Absolute Book is unstable. The rupture is centred on an object, a everything fantasy should wooden casket containing a book known as the be: original, magical, well Firestarter due to its habit of surviving disastrous read . Its language is assured, lyrical yet never over- and often inexplicable library fi res. Shift insists that wrought, and in its surprising twists of fate, its deft Taryn alone holds the key to its whereabouts . As she characterisation and constant forward momentum, is drawn into an adventure of trans-dimensional it is both accessible and com pelling. At 600-plus magnitude, Taryn comes increasingly to suspect that pages, a book makes demands on the reader simply her sister’s death was collateral damage in a secret at the level of how much time they are prepared to war for possession of the casket’s contents. devote to it. Yet that very ambition – the sweep and I t is books, more than anything, that form the heft of its ideas – ensures that eff ort expended is beating heart of The Absolute Book. This is a text that amply rewarded. seethes with literary allusions: classics of ancient “Jacob was tired and a little nostalgic for the surety literature, fairy stories, crime capers, philosophical of his own wounded pride,” Knox tells us of her treatises and radical polemics, novels of manners and scepti cal policeman, Berger. “But wasn’t what was revenge, heroic quests and big books-about-books happening to him now the kind of change he’d been such as The Shadow of the Wind, The Da Vinci Code, waiting for his whole life?” Thus Knox invites us Night Train to Lisbon and The Saragossa Manuscript – to open our minds to the possibilities that fantasy “arcane thrillers”, as Knox has called them. off ers. The daring complexity of her art confi rms The Absolute Book is a tongue-in-cheek homage to that reading is itself an act of the imagination worth these overblown literary detective stories as well as a investing in. triumph of literary fantasy, and this knowing, feisty, humorous contribution to the genre is a hefty piece To buy a copy for £13.04 go to guardianbookshop.com .

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 17 Books of the month

{ Children } Wisecracking corvids; the biology of the brain; and the dangerous beauty of sharks Imogen Russell Williams

World Book Day tie-in titles are especially strong this year, from Katherine Rundell’s Skysteppers (Bloomsbury), a nail-biting scramble across the skyline of Paris and prequel to the bestselling Rooftoppers, to the crazed fun of Humza Arshad and Henry White’s Little Badman and the Radioactive Samosa (Puffi n), illustrated by Aleksei Bitskoff , in which a box of irradiated triangular treats confers superpowers on a trio of kids. Other brilliant books for eight-year-olds and up this for what should be hers. A hard-hitting, gripping read, month include Show Us Who You Are (Knights Of) by told from both girls’ perspectives, which is full of Elle McNicoll. Cora, who is autistic, loves hanging out fi erce courage in the face of injustice . with Adrien, son of the CEO of Pomegranate Techno- Meanwhile, Mort the Meek and the Ravens’ logies – until an accident leaves Adrien in a coma. Revenge (Stripes) by Rachel Delahaye, illustrated by Pomegranate makes holograms of people, preserving George Ermos, is the tale of hap less Mort, the only memories for grieving families. But what modifi ca- pacifi st in a distinctly brutal kingdom, who’s just tions might be made to the holograms in a spurious been made Royal Executioner – and told to bump off quest for “perfection”? This is a startlingly original his best friend. Crammed with wisecracking corvids speculative novel, and a moving, passionate interro- and outrageous wordplay, it’s an engagingly light- gation of prejudice against neurodiversity. hearted, Pratchettesque comic fantasy. Two Sisters: A Story of Freedom (Scholastic) by For those aged seven and above, and also illustrated Kereen Getten features inseparable 18th-century half- by George Ermos, there’s Harley Hitch and the Iron sisters Ruth and Anna, who are sent on a voyage from Forest (Scholastic) by Vashti Hardy, a joyful mash-up Jamaica to England. Anna’s almost white skin means of robots, conservationism and school story. Inventive she is always treated diff erently, while Ruth must fi ght Harley is determined to win “pupil of the term”; but

Clockwise from main: Swim, Shark, Swim, Mort the Meek and the Ravens’ Revenge, Funny Bums ... and Not That Pet!

1818 TheTheeG GuardianGuaruarardiadiiiaan SSaSaturdayatturtuurrdayda 2277 MMaMarcharcrrchchch 202202102121 { Teenagers } An undercover investigation; love blossoms in the wake of the Troubles; sisters provoke the spirit world

republican, and his dad is a former political prisoner; Iona’s family is Protestant, her father and brother in the police. When Iona sees Aidan being assaulted on the Firekeeper’s Daughter Peace Bridge, the two are by Angeline Boulley, drawn to one another – Oneworld, £12.99 but the wounds of his- Biracial and proudly tory remain open . This Native American teen- superb debut evokes the ager Daunis Fire keeper deep-rooted mistrust, has never felt wholly anger and antagonism at home either in her lingering in the wake of home town or on the the Troubles, as well as a Ojibwe reservation. new, tentative fl owering When she witnesses her of hope and love. when a rogue fungus begins killing off the cogs and best friend’s murder, hinges growing in the Iron Forest, can Harley and Daunis is drawn into an new pupil Cosmo come up with a solution – or will FBI drugs investigation, they just make matters worse? in which she reluctantly In nonfi ction, The Usborne Book of the Brain agrees to play a covert and How It Works by research scientist Betina Ip, part – but as death strikingly illustrated by Mia Nilsson, is a funny and follows death, what fascinating wander through the biology of the brain. cruel truths will she From emotions to the sleep cycle, it’s pitched just right discover at the heart of We Played With Fire to hold the reader enthralled. her beloved community? by Catherine Barter, The child-appeal of Funny Bums, Freaky Beaks and This fat, satisfying Andersen, £7.99 Other Incredible Creature Features (Welbeck) isn’t novel ably con veys a When teenager Maggie limited to the title – this compelling compendium of sense of place and Fox was involved in a animals is grouped by body parts from strange toes to complex feeling; it’s sinister accident, the perplexing necks, with lively text from Sean Taylor both an interrogation family moved away to and Alex Morss, and Sarah Edmonds’s intricate, of racist misogyny rural isolation in New vibrant illustrations. and a swift-paced, York state. Now Maggie In picture books, Dom Conlon and Anastasia Izlesou compelling thriller. and Katie have started collaborate on Swim, Shark, Swim! (Graff eg), a sump- playing with the idea of tuously illustrated, powerful poem with a repeated spirits; and then Leah, refrain (“he opens a tunnel / of bubbles and light and their big sister, sees a / swim, Shark, SWIM!”). It circumnavigates the globe, way of making money brushing fi ns with various shark species and conveying from their games. But the dangerous beauty of their lives. has the make-believe In The Forgettery (Egmont) by Rachel Ip and Laura become more than play. Hughes, Amelia’s granny forgets things, big and little – Where will it end? Based but everything ever forgotten is stored in the Forget- Guard Your Heart on the true story of the tery. A tender, humorous look at the idea of dementia by Sue Divin, Fox sisters and the 19th- for very young children, it boasts some of the poignant Macmillan, £7.99 century origins of sweetness of Julia Donaldson’s The Paper Dolls. Eighteen years after the spiritualism, Barter’s Finally, “Not That Pet!” (Walker) by Smriti Halls and Northern Ireland peace second novel is atmos- Rosalind Beardshaw combines a rollicking quest for agreement, two Derry pheric, unsettling and the ideal animal companion with a feast of visual and teenagers share a birth- laced with political and verbal jokes and a delightful mixed family – sari-clad day, but nothing more. feminist observation. Grandma batting away rogue worms is a highlight. Aidan is Catholic and IRW

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 19 ¶ Inside story

‘It’s magic’: Theresa Lola (2019) I always loved writing, I just wanted to tell stories. poetry and power Then when I was about 13, living in Nigeria, I went on a school trip to a poetry festival and it became poetry that I wanted to write. The laureateship was one of those emails you get that you’re like, “What?” I knew my focus was going to be wellbeing. The As Amanda Gorman’s epidemic has exacerbated this, but at the time there was a lot of focus on the mental health crisis among The Hill We Climb is young people and I wanted to address that – and to write about our joys, too : the things that bring us published, the current happiness . Poetry has this wonderful gift of allowing us to be imaginative and allowing us to articulate young people’s laureate even the most complex feelings. And there’s a power in that, especially when you’re writing about things for London and her that make you feel powerless. There is a power in having your own voice, and having some sort of predecessors share control over how you share that story. To have poetry make national headlines after Joe their own ambitions Biden’s inauguration was just so exciting . Let’s be honest, that particular inauguration was one like no and inspirations other, so to have Amanda Gorman’s poem being able to articulate everyone’s feelings, the feelings of the past, the present and the future – that was just the perfect example of what poetry can do.

Caleb Femi (2016) When I was off ered the laureateship, I had just left Cecilia Knapp teaching and had no idea what I was going to do for I came to poetry by accident, through a workshop work. I just knew that I wanted to be a writer, and I at Camden’s Roundhouse. I was 18 at the time, had wanted to engage with young people in a way that no money, and was living alone in London. Poetry was a lot freer than the confi nes of the curriculum. had not been in my life before. I was awful when I When the gig was off ered to me, I was ecstatic. started. But I was so thirsty to get better. Sometimes when you mention poetry to the I’m working on my fi rst collection now. I lost my general public they wince, because people haven’t mum at a young age, so a lot of the collection looks at had the best experience in school, whether it was how that might impact a young woman . And I lost my the way that it was taught, or the content not being older brother to suicide in 2012. He had a long battle widely refl ective of the human experience . So I with addiction, and also his sexuality, and I was a wanted to contribute to a rehabilitation of poetry . carer for him for a really long time. A lot of the poems It was also about putting young people at the fore- in the book that I’m working on look at his life. I’ve front of everything. I was particularly interested in always used writing as a way to fi gure things out : not looking at the outer boroughs of London, because necessarily to fi nd answers, more to ask questions. I feel, in terms of engagement of the arts, those are When young people see a poem or fi lm on YouTube the areas that are usually the most disen franchised or social media, it gets rid of that precon ception that and overlooked. poetry has to be this isolated, solitary act of opening For me, what poetry aff ords you is a chance to a book and reading something old fashioned. interrogate how you feel about yourself, your I’ve worked with young people for almost a decade insecurities, fears, wonders, happiness. It allows you now, and I’ve experienced fi rst-hand the eff ect to articulate that, and by doing so, you’re able to fully poetry can have on them – something happens when understand it . This is very important as a young you let yourself be free and creative, it is magic. person, as you can fi nd your tribe that way. It also Someone who I use as a springboard for young people allows you to empathise and understand somebody is Danez Smith, a non-binary African Amer ican poet else’s experience. I think it really enriches you as a who talks a lot about race, class , sexuality and gender human being . in their collections Don’t Call Us Dead and Homie . Roger Robinson’s book A Portable Paradise respon- ded so amazingly to the injustice of Grenfell, as did Selina Nwulu (2015) Jay Bernard’s book Surge . There are so many amazing A lot of what I do within the poetry world is thinking

BARBARA PREMO; SARAH LEE; HAYLEY MADDEN /SPREAD THE WORD; SOPHIA EVANS SOPHIA WORD; THE /SPREAD MADDEN HAYLEY LEE; SARAH PREMO; BARBARA writers at the moment. about the role of art and poetry within conversations

20 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Inside story ¶

London pride Clockwise from far left: Caleb Femi; Selina Nwulu; Theresa Lola; Aisling Fahey; Cecilia Knapp around social change. It’s no coincidence that the Jacob Sam-La Rose, Malika Booker and Nick Makoha. popularity of poetry has risen in recent years, with For the fi rst time, I was listening to living poets telling the way things have been going politically. their stories. I saw the eff ect they had on their aud i- I’m the youngest in a large family, so I was often ences. Poetry became something with power and encouraged to write poetry as a way to distract me for purpose. That was it for me. a bit. In school I didn’t really gravitate towards it, and It was so exciting to be asked to be a laureate. my writing was almost like a diary entry, never any- There were lots of pinch-yourself moments. I was thing I imagined that I would share, just a way of able to travel. I went to literature festivals. I ran processing things. I started doing open mics, and it workshops for people across the globe. I wanted to grew from there . It was never anything I would have challenge people’s perceptions of poetry. expected, but once I was there I rode the wave. Amanda Gorman’s performance was completely As laureate, I wanted to be an ambassador for what mesmerising. I watched it live and she transported poetry could be. Part of what I was doing was encour- me with her words. She really connected with people aging young people to write about what they care across the world – she shone! People turn to poetry about, but also it was me doing that by example. in moments of high emotion: a birth, a celebration, I write to understand the sweet spot between the a tragedy. We often see poems go viral because they personal and the political, how to talk about some- have captured people’s thoughts. But any viral poem thing diffi cult in a way that is engaging. My motiva- is just the tip of the iceberg. In the UK, we have so tion is to talk about politics , race, climate change, the many great young poets just coming up, and so many social injustices that surround us, but in a way that is poets who have been working for years. I devoured beautiful and personal. That’s how you disarm the Rachel Long’s My Darling from the Lions, and am reader. When I started, it was very important for me currently reading The Air Year by Caroline Bird. I to be known as a political poet. Now I’m seeing the often return to Eavan Boland, including Outside politics in everything. Amanda Gorman is an incred- History and A Woman Without A Country . It’s won- ible example of the power of poetry and activism. derful when you see signs that more collections are being sold or getting published, that there’s a need for poetry from the public. The talent is there – it’s Aisling Fahey (2014) just up to people to discover it • I’ve had a very enriching experience with poetry over the years . But my breakthrough moment came when The Young People’s Laureate for London programme is I was 13, when I entered a competition via school. run by Spread the Word, London’s writer development Through that, I was really lucky to meet poets such as agency. Visit spreadtheword.org.uk.

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 21 ¶ Books essay

cross much of the west, March ‘We will have to choose is a milestone both surreal and distressing: a full year of life in our apocalypse’ Covid-19’s shadow. Twelve months ago, we couldn’t imagine what we Sam Byers A were about to experience; now we can’t process what we’ve endured. This was a year of seemingly irresolvable contra- In his latest novel, the dictions. Our grief was collective, yet rituals of communal mourning were denied us. We hymned Perfi dious Albion author the “global eff ort” to produce a vaccine, then recoiled into vaccine nationalism the moment that eff ort bore explores the tension fruit. Even as Zoom held us together, Covid denial and conspiracy theories in the family WhatsApp tore between personal and us apart. We clapped for carers and then, clinging to a Christmas we refused to cancel, some turned collective freedom. viciously against them. On one thing, at least, we were all in agreement: we wanted to be free. The problem was that we To remake society after couldn’t agree on what that freedom looked like, or who should enjoy it. Even as new horizons of the pandemic, he argues, collec tive action and mutual support seemed pos- sible, the urge to do whatever we wanted took hold we must swap Insta with renewed force. Set against the freedom from infec tion was the freedom to endanger others by self-improvement for leaving lockdown; the freedom to do away with masks and exhale deadly airborne droplets in the something more radical super market; the right to spread dangerous, divisive fi ctions. When fi nally the halls of US government were stormed and occupied, it wasn’t civil rights activists or eco-warriors posing for a selfi e in the chamber, it was a loose conglomeration of angry and often baffl ed conspiracy theorists, splinter Republicans and Nazis, freely subverting the democracy they claimed to defend. I’d spent 2018 and 2019 exploring the challenges and contradictions of personal and collective freedom in what would become my third novel, Come Join Our Disease, which I completed in March 2020. The novel follows Maya, a homeless woman “rehabilitated” through a programme of traumatising work, exhausting wellness-based self-improvement, and the hollow affi rmation of daily Instagram posts chart ing her “transformation”. Trapped between the hell of exclusion and the exhausting labour of belong ing, Maya comes to feel that only one freedom is available to her: the liberation of letting herself go completely. Occupying an abandoned industrial building with a group of other women, she embraces a lifestyle that is part dirty protest and part myst ical experience . My growing feeling is that those of us whose daily reality is shaped by capitalism’s latest and most virulent strain fi nd ourselves caught between duel ling and equally intolerable experiences. On the one hand, we long for a better world. On the other, we fear that an evolved Personal utopias world will hold no place Yoga, social media for us. In the middle is and baking; above our great doomed pro- right, Sam Byers ject: the self.

2222 TheTThheGe GuardianGuaruauarardiaddiiaian SaturdaySaSaturtutururdaydadayay 2727 MMaMarcharcrrchchch 202202102121 Books essay ¶

To see at work the back in our cars, fl ocking to beaches we despoiled contradictory impulses with trash and human shit, dreaming of the day and injunctions we’re daily we could not only drive but fl y cheaply . expected to reconcile, you As whole areas of work and remuneration were might begin by immersing eroded, we spoke briefl y and hearteningly about the yourself, as Maya does, need for a universal basic income, a fairer system, in our collective online an economy based on something other than numbing existence. Here, through work fuelled by takeaway coff ees. Now the Labour a kaleidoscope of party tells us that “the only way to deliver social justice inspirational Instagram and equality is through a strong partnership with quotes, revolutionary businesses”. Where once 20,000 deaths was the praxis, artfully prepared metric by which we might food and eff ortless-seeming yoga poses, profound On the one measure our success , now contra dictions are reconfi gured as a series of hand, we long it might just become the seductive adjacencies. We are encouraged to for a better world. annual toll we’re willing challenge power, punch up, resist. And yet at the On the other, to accept, the price for our same time we are exhorted to grow and glow, refusal to change. strive, achieve, become. we fear that an The state of transcen- The result is an excruciating double bind. Only evolved world dental decay Maya reaches through a more robust sense of self, we believe, will hold no in the novel is extreme, can we muster the rebellious energy by which the place for us but what she fi nds as she unjust world around us might be changed. And yet, unravels is the very thing so deep down, we know the truth: that our unjust few of us can bear to accept: world depends for its survival on the very project that what we live amid, of selfh ood in which we’re all so overinvested. however repugnant, is our Many of these tensions collide most spectacularly own creation . If we want, fi nally, to change it, then in the world of wellness, where disciplines such as we will have no choice but to change ourselves. That yoga and meditation, which once took as their process of change will not be blissful. At the end of goal the dissolution of the self, are pressed into the it, we will not be beaming and aglow. We will be service of a bolstered ego and enhanced productiv- wrecked, raw . Somewhere in all of us is the very ity. In this telling, freedom, like the equally mytholo- totemic fi gure we loudly claim to loathe: the gised idea of “happiness”, is no longer a collective lockdown-breaking Covid sceptic, the bloviating goal but a small and fi ercely defended box of opinion columnist or gaseous radio host, the personal space . self-satisfi ed centrist or sneering ideologue, the But if our conception of a free future is simply a diarrhoeic polluter, the bigoted, raging, punitive cop. series of tiny, personalised utopias, all we will create Until we excise them from ourselves, we’ll continue is a world in which only the strongest and most fully to create them in the world. The more privilege we evolved selves assume dominance. A world, in short, embody, the messier the process will be. Because very much like the one we have now . what is privilege, really, if not the continual In the course of Come Join Our Disease, Maya distortion of the world to refl ect our comfort? comes to embrace a worldview in which liberation This is not to say that we should entirely replace is not about what we gain, but what we are willing a project of structural critique and opposition with to abandon. Far from the freedom to “be ourselves”, a project of inward exploration. Nor is it to say that true freedom in this sense would mean an end to abuses of power should go unchallenged or that for ever needing to be ourselves again. This is why, some of us the work of rebuilding self-esteem and when faced with even the possi bility of a better, personal resilience is not vital. It is that we are going more just, more liberated world, we claim to long to have to accept an ugly, inconvenient but necessary for it, only to reactively stifl e its emer gence. It’s truth: that the price of the life each of us wants is a because we know that real freedom would entail the world we are all collectively able to live in, and so sus- erasure of all the boundaries and signifi ers by which taining a world we can all safely inhabit may very well we have defi ned and comforted ourselves; that it depend on dismantling the individual life we desire. would, in eff ect, destroy us. Ordinarily, in the time that follows a book’s When we speak of Covid’s tragic legacy, we focus completion, the characters seem to wander further on the incomprehensible death toll, the long emo- from view, until one day they vanish completely. tional and economic shadow, the coming era of But Maya feels closer to me than ever, and what felt vaccine inequality. But there is also, I think, an speculative at the time of writing now feels painfully existential legacy . Briefl y, a series of alternatives real. In the world to come we will have to choose our became visible to us. But having seen them, we apocalypse. Either we will annihilate, fi nally, the sense rejected them, and returned to what we knew . of ourselves we cling to, or we will redouble our faith Last spring, the freshness of the lockdown air in it, feed it, build it until it dwarfs all else, and then

DAN MATTHEWS/THE GUARDIAN; DELL INC; PRAETHIP DOCEKALOVA ALAMY; GARY DOAK / ALAMY / DOAK GARY ALAMY; DOCEKALOVA PRAETHIP INC; DELL GUARDIAN; MATTHEWS/THE DAN struck us like a revelation. By summer we were watch, hopelessly, as it destroys the world we live in •

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 23 ¶ Interview

must be humble in the face of nature.’ He was thereby Terms of engagement putting the pandemic on the side of nature. As we hopefully mature in our understandings of our relationship with the world outside, we have to move towards a much more broad-based concept of what nature means. When people say: ‘Yeah! Go out and reconnect with nature! Nature makes you well!’ in fact they are just talking about a cherry-picked A pioneer of British selection – trees and birds and fl owers.” While many of us have spent the pandemic worry- nature writing, ing hugely , Mabey, who describes himself as “natu r- ally a really quite anxious person” has been mentally Richard Mabey has untroubled by coronavirus. Instead, locked down at his home with his partner, Polly, on the Norfolk- always been years Suff olk border, he’s been thinking. Now, invigorated by #Mabeymonth on Twitter – an appreciation ahead of his time. So devised by fellow writers Tim Dee , Mark Cocker and Jamie – Mabey is ready to start the book of big ideas he regrets not writing sooner. how does he think the In an era when bookshops are thickly forested with new nature tomes, it is easy to forget that for decades pandemic will change Mabey, in Britain, was a lone voice in an empty fi eld. He grew up a “ hedge kid ”, roaming the Hertfordshire our attitude to nature, countryside around Berkhamsted , for whom nature was a refuge from a bed-ridden, alcoholic father who asks Patrick Barkham ruled the household as if by remote control. Writing has always been how Mabey makes sense of things, and keeps well. When his father died, “I thought that I really wouldn’t care less whether he was alive or not”, but two hours after the funeral Mabey “sat in fter a year of virus-plagued humans my room and just wrote pages and pages on blue observing with new wonder how Basildon Bond paper about what I’d been feeling. I wildlife boosts our wellbeing, couldn’t have gone through the rest of the day if I the conclusion of the man who hadn’t done that.” invented the burgeoning “nature In the early 1960s, Mabey joined the political pro- A cure” genre is unexpected. Nature, tests of the day – arrested during street demos against declares Richard Mabey, makes us the Cuban missile crisis – but it was visiting the Norfolk ill. He was fi rst told this by a fellow writer, Kathleen coast where he encountered traditional foraging for Jamie, and it made Mabey “think very much more food such as samphire that moved him to write Food deeply about the whole panoply of what ‘nature’ for Free (1972), which pre-dates by three decades means,” he says. “Bacteria and viruses and man- Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s advocacy of wild food. eating tigers and predatory Asian hornets are also Mabey, who cites Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and all part of nature. At times we need to defend our- Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek as his key texts, selves from ‘nature’ but also row back from the value has been consistently trailblazing. His second book, judgments we make about certain parts of the natural The Unoffi cial Countryside (1973), is a memorable cele- world, because we need the whole thing kicking bration of wildlife in rubbish dumps and waste ground together if the biosphere, including us, is to survive.” that foreshadows by 40 years other British writers’ Mabey, who has just celebrated his 80th birthday, interest in “edgelands ” . His has been a pioneer in British nature writing and ‘You’re face to biography of Gilbert White environmental thinking for fi ve decades. He is not face with a violet (1986) and epic cultural a contrarian but has consistently interrogated and helleborine. history of plants, Flora challenged prevailing patterns of thinking in more than What might it be Britannica (1996), are key 30 books. Nature is a “criminally abused word”, he texts in the revival of nature says. And he criticises the simplicity of the assumption perceiving about writing in Britain. More that we have been reconnecting with nature in the your presence? recently, Mabey’s Nature wake of the pandemic’s lockdowns. “I’m particularly There’s a Cure (2005), detailing his aroused by this term ‘reconnection with nature’, transaction mental breakdown after given that we are all every moment, every breath of going on’ fi nishing Flora Britannica our lives very connected with it. I hate to say any and the succour he found by words in support of our great leader but at one point belatedly leaving behind his

SI BARBER/THE GUARDIAN; IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY GUARDIAN; BARBER/THE SI during lockdown Boris Johnson used the phrase: ‘We childhood home in the

24 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021 Interview ¶

big ideas because they tend to lead to dogmatism and ideology, and nature works in small ideas, little adjustments. But I think there is a germ of a big idea about how we frame our relationship with these other beings on our planet.” He wants to probe these relationships more closely in a book rooted in the plants of his “home acres” around the Waveney valley. “O K, you’re face to face with a violet helleborine in a wood you know very well. What is going on between you and it? How are you framing its existence in relation to your own? Do you have any thoughts about what the violet helle- borine may be perceiving about your presence – your scent molecules, your carbon dioxide emissions? There’s a transaction going on, which is diff erent from the transactions we have with other conscious beings but which is there nonetheless.” For all his scepticism about the idea that “nature makes us well”, to my surprise Mabey does not dismiss the view that we are currently enjoying a changed relationship with other species. “I’m absolutely sure that it’s a real phenomenon. It’s quite plain that people did have an unusual res- Left, Richard Mabey, ponse to the natural world whose book on during lockdown and are foraging predated still having that,” he says. the recent trend by He identifi es two new 30 years. Below, a aspects to this. One is the violet helleborine feeling that nature is doing “marvellously well without Chilterns for the bleaker south Norfolk countryside, us” – trees blooming, birds heralded the genre of nature misery memoir. singing – and isn’t that Eighteen months ago, after a period of poor physical wonderful. In the past, health, Mabey published what sounded like his last says Mabey, signs of nature ever book, with a suitably elegiac title, Turning the prospering during human Boat for Home. An expanded collection of 20 years of suff ering were resented. writing, he calls it “an intellectual autobiography” “I’m thinking of TS Eliot’s but admits it sprang from failure. “I badly wanted to ‘April is the cruellest month’ write what I thought would be a last book. Some sort after the fi rst world war. of summing up of a life. But I very quickly confi rmed He was suggesting that the that I don’t have the right sort of mind or memory to spectacle of lilacs blooming do what people regard as autobiographies.” was off ensive to people The collection is a reminder of his essayistic talents, who wanted to wallow in the misery of what was from a gorgeous ferret into his bookshelves, which happening.” When Mabey researched Weeds (2010) – possess “the rampant wildness of an ecosystem, with another book a decade ahead of its time – he found an agenda of its own”, to an examination of how we that the spectacle of rosebay willowherb blooming in might better relate to barn owls, birdsong and whirligig the ruins of bomb blasted British cities during the beetles. The most respectful terms of engagement, he second world war was again greeted as if “nature” argues, are not “anthropomorphism or manufactured was adding “insult to injury”. empathy” but “a sense of neighbourliness”. This is “The second thing that’s new is the minuteness of not friendship but “based on sharing a place, on the attention brought to bear on other species,” says the common experience of home and habitat and Mabey. “I’ve found this myself. Wandering around the season”. “It might provide a bridge across the great garden, I’m seeing things that I’m ashamed to say I’ve conceptual divide between us and other species.” not focused on before – the particular mechanisms of a Neighbourliness is “just scratching the surface” leaf bud opening up, or dozens of Harlequin ladybirds Mabey says. He is delighted by his friend Robert scurrying on a lichen-covered ash tree. They looked Macfarlane’s essay exploring “the new animism”. “I like herbivores grazing on a lichen forest. This seems to think this is the new intellectual frontier,” he says. “If be tied to the fi rst thing. When you admit that nature there is one deep regret of my life, it is that I’ve never in the very broadest sense seems to be doing OK – and done a book of a big idea. I’ve always been frightened isn’t that hopeful for the whole planet – it draws you of them, partly because a bit of me doesn’t believe in into a more wondrous attention to what it is doing ” •

Saturday 27 March 2021 The Guardian 25 ¶ How I wrote

the circumstances I’d chose the character of ‘I wrote it as a fugitive’ encountered in England. a rural girl, Tambudzai Tsitsi Dangarembga I’d experienced racism (the country’s popu- growing up in Rhodesia lation was more than and hadn’t expected it in 70% rural at the time). England. I didn’t suff er it. Babamukuru, her well- But I suff ered from lack of off uncle, came to me Nervous Conditions is a summer of 1979 a peace interest in and ignorance easily. The extended novel about yearning treaty resulted in a road of a bloody war that had family, with more and and wanting, about black map to independence. aff ected my family. At less well-to-do branches, girls – in this case Zim- I was in London, where Cambridge, I suff ered is still a reality and a bab wean girls – desiring I’d spent all my summers from sexual predation source of frustration and better for themselves since arriving in England, when I looked for holiday contention caused by and their loved ones. during the peace talks. digs, and ended up in demands, expectations I wrote it as a fugitive. The bleakness of the cheap B&Bs. and obligations today. A fugitive from my fi rst Zimbabwean students’ It became evident At fi rst, I didn’t have memories and of what lives, their self-medica- to me that diff erences a clue what I was writing. my life had become. tion with various drugs between how my elder Then I read Germaine Early memories were and episodes of mental brother and I had been Greer’s The Female of a foster home in Dover, collapse related to reliv- brought up had impacted Eunuch, which gave me then of returning to a ing a war from which on our coping strategies. permission to critique Rhodesia that had just they’d fl ed indicated to Stand ing up for oneself, what I thought of as removed itself from the me how the mind needed know ing what one my culture. Discarding British empire. After as much treatment as wanted and asking for all previous pages, I school I returned to Eng- the body. it were not part of my started over, writing land to study for a BSc in I decided there was no daughterly repertoire. longhand in A4 exercise medicine at the Univer- point in being the only I thought young women books, a fresh one for sity of Cambridge. The black girl in my college, looking to take advantage each chapter. Finally idea was to proceed to reading for a degree I was of the opportunities an I allowed Tambudzai a teaching hospital after no longer interested in. I inde p en dent Zimbabwe to want something for I gradu ated, such as the returned to Zimbabwe in off ered had to be warned herself – her education. hospital at the mission the winter and enrolled about this. I encouraged her to in the Eastern Highlands at the University of I wanted to write fi ght for it, and enjoy of Zimbabwe where I’d Zimbabwe. about a girl many young it . Six months later, the spent several years of I fl ourished in the new Zimbabwean women manuscript was ready my childhood. But the independent country . would identify with, to send to the typist. nationalist liber a tion Looking back, I realised someone who was struggle escalated while I I’d been singularly grounded in a Zimbab- Nervous Conditions was at college, and in the unprepared to manage wean experience, so I is reissued by Faber.

Tom Gauld

26 The Guardian Saturday 27 March 2021