![]() ![]() Victoria Spratt is a fierce journalist, activist and housing rights campaigner. Still Born is Nettel’s fourth novel and the first of the Mexican writer’s work to be released by Fitzcarraldo Editions. It’ll stay with you, whatever your own thoughts, resistance or reticence to the subject. Though Laura is the protagonist, the short and sharp chapters that flit between the two women are captivating, their stories equally urgent. It is totally gripping – blind spots I never even thought to look for on womanhood and motherhood are lit up. Alina’s pregnancy becomes more complicated and concerning, and Laura fixates on a neighbour’s troubled young son (and the young family of pigeons on her balcony). While Laura decides to be sterilised, Alina opens herself up to motherhood. Some of her deftest insights arrive trojan horse-like with her light touch, stealthy and startling: “Just as someone who, without ever having contemplated suicide, allows themselves to be seduced by the abyss from the top of a skyscraper, I felt the lure of pregnancy.”Īlina and Laura are two friends, both independent and career-focused women in their 30s, who have so far resisted moulding their lives around domesticity. ![]() It’s a subject that’s well-trodden, but it’s still consistently treated as a universal experience – Nettel approaches mothering with originality and oceans of empathy. Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey, devotes tight prose to the complicated structure of identity around being (or not being) a mother and explores the constant negotiating women must do in the process. I’ve not read such capacious writing on the subject of motherhood since first picking up Jamaica Kincaid or reading Jenny Offill’s “ art monster” in Dept. Faye reclaims the “transgender issue” from the culture wars to explore what it means to be trans in a transphobic society, making the case for trans liberation as a movement that would recast society in its most caring, freeing form for us all, with incredible clarity. Meanwhile, Shon Faye’s stylish and compelling The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice is recently out in paperback form. It’s also been a year since Amelia Horgan’s Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism, a succinct, incisive book that rails against the working world as we know it and all live by – it’s worth a read after last week’s British transport strikes. This month’s selection of books includes some exciting reissues, debuts and translations bath reads, polemics and scandal-starters. If you’re feeling as flush as you are horny in the heat, why not cop a softcore porn mag about the chicas of Ibiza from IDEA? For something more wholesome, photographer Chanel Irvine captures the wonders of English summers in her magic, intimate photobook – its rituals, absurdities and beautiful banalities, and all the vinegar-soaked chips, Battenburg-bodied swimmers and heaving pub gardens. A fleeting, mercurial yet precious thing, this is a season for edging out the Easyjet baggage allowance with an ambitious haul from Waterstones and pages curled by chlorine and Fanta Limon, translated fiction that deposits you further than a park in Hackney, and absolute bangers like this book about Brits abroad from the year 2000. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |