Author: Sara Crowley

All Fours by Miranda July

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Miranda July is always interesting and writes with appealing and strange honesty. To read a novel where the narrator is an intelligent middle-aged woman , independent and even (gasp) sexual, is a treat. How many novels have been written where an old male professor of literature or similar has an active sex life with a younger woman – yawn. All Fours shouldn’t feel so unique but is. The narrator is supposed to go to New York for a 3 week work trip and is persuaded to drive – road trip! Instead, she only makes it to a nearby town where she spots a handsome young guy working in Hertz. She holes up in a motel for the night and then…  just stays.

This quote stopped me and had me sending it to my pals in one of those glorious connection moments with the note “THIS! Exactly this” – “If birth was being thrown energetically up into the air, we aged as we rose. At the height of our ascent we were middle-aged and then we fell for the rest of our lives, the whole second half. Falling might take just as long, but it was nothing like rising. The whole time you were rising you could not imagine what came next in your particular, unique journey; you could not see around the corner. Whereas falling ended the same way for everyone.”
This is a novel about someone examining aging, being a mum, wife, creative artist, friend, taking pause to look at who they are and reconnecting with themselves. It’s also about a peri-menopausal woman having a fierce crush and exploding into their desires.

 I mean, it’s bonkers and all written from a point of monied privilege: the narrator can afford to take this time for personal growth and exploration thanks to a wealthy husband and personal success in an opaque arts related field,. They can leave their child and husband for 3 weeks and then reshape their life. They can pay to have a shabby motel room redecorated in an expensive plush replica of the fanciest of hotel rooms. It’s not relatable. Her lifestyle doesn’t have to be though, it’s enough that these thrilling words are written. The ending wasn’t satisfying for me, but who cares? I love that July writes this messy, complicated, eccentric stuff. Long may she continue.

Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey

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This is one of those delicious immersive novels which saw me both reading late into the night unwilling to leave the story, and putting the book down to wait to finish it because I didn’t want it to be over. I loved the two main characters, Pip and Milly, and it was a pleasure to watch them weave in and out of each other’s lives over the course of 40 years; their stories told in alternating chapters. London is the third main character, its contrasting riches and squalor so much more than a mere backdrop as Christine Dwyer Hickey shows us buildings, architecture, gardens, riverbanks, and squats; the developers who tear down and rebuild, and the people who live, work and visit. This has everything I look for in a novel, incredible writing which draws you in and makes the fictional world real, interesting characters with depth, an insightful look at what it is to be human, and a real sense of jeopardy as these two troubled people navigate poverty, trauma, addiction and hope.

 Beginning in the late 70’s Pip and Milly, two young Irish people who have moved to London, meet in a pub. Pip’s a promising boxer with a taste for drink, and Milly is a live in barmaid. There are several well rounded and fascinating characters that surround them through the years – Mrs Oak the pub owner who takes Milly in, Trish, another barmaid, Dom, Pip’s older and more successful musician brother, “… it’s not that he doesn’t love his brother, it’s just that he can’t fucking stand him.” and Dom’s son, Max. Even those on the periphery feel real, their conversations natural and distinct. I bloody adored this.

When We Were Silent by Fiona McPhillips

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If you keep up with book buzz you will have already seen so much about When We Were Silent, the debut novel by Fiona McPhillips. Nobody needs a review of it by me – Steven blooming King just recommended it. Nonetheless, here I am joining in.

Decades ago, Louise Manson, a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl, was admitted to a posh private school hoping to avenge her best friend’s death. Suddenly surrounded by entitlement borne of wealth (while at home her mum is desperately in debt) Lou tries to navigate her way to expose the abusive swimming coach. The details of the time, the music, posters and chatter of young girls, is keenly observed, and the intensity of feelings seems very real.
In the present day Lou is called to give evidence in a young boy’s case against a swimming teacher. I don’t want to spoiler anything so won’t say more than When We Were Silent is a gripping and tense tale that feels grimly plausible. McPhillips ramps the tension up and this becomes a real page turner as we read on to the thrilling conclusion.

Beauty gubbins

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I’ve written blogs for years and they’ve always been about books and writing. I review books, interview writers, share random essays and thoughts about literary stuff, and publicise my own stories. With a demanding job and limited time, blogging has become something I don’t do very often. (Plus, erm, so many social media places vying for my attention and an insatiable thirst for scrolling mindlessly.) I don’t keep an eye on stats and rarely think about my little blog, so I was surprised when I clicked on an email link and saw my number one post. Not one of my interviews, not one of my sometimes-contentious posts about literary magazines and publishing, not a review, but my ONLY ever post about skincare.

Having rosacea and menopausal skin that has rendered me a husk I get it! I’m interested too. So much so that I have an Instagram that I run with my ace pal Kellie. It’s called FACEACHE and we review the shit we put on our middle-aged faces. It was Kellie’s idea; she’s also responsible for the Bette and Joan pic. While I’m not sure which one of us is which, you can identify who writes a review by the emoji sign off – salt pot (me) or pie (Kellie).

We’ve reviewed Mirror Water Balm, Jones Road foundation, IT cosmetics CC cream, Debaser perfume, Benefit mascara, Caudalie, and the funniest of all – Kellie’s exploration of a beef tallow product. If that’s your kinda thing please head over to Instagram and give us a follow at FACEACHE REVIEWS

Ootlin by Jenni Fagan

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I’ve been a fan of Jenni Fagan’s writing since her 2018 debut novel, The Panopticon, was published. Reading her memoir, Ootlin, it’s hard not to draw parallels between the central Panopticon character, Anais Hendricks, and Jenni Fagan herself; both fizz with intelligence, both born into a care system which is anything but. Ootlin is an intensely personal book (which began as a suicide note). It’s distressing and vital; vividly written, poetic, brutal. I was completely absorbed and horrified and sad, yet it’s a page-turner despite being a hard read. We follow Fagan from birth through a childhood spent in a succession of foster homes. There is so much cruelty. So much. It’s unbearable. I’m in awe of the absolute strength and skill it must have taken to write this book. Knowing that Fagan is an artist and writer with a successful career was the much-needed light guiding me through. What a life she has endured. What a triumph her survival in spite of it all is.

“…what we are living through is not a thrill, it’s not a story, it’s not a buzz, it’s not a joke, it’s not gossip, it is not a story that other people tell, it’s not words on a file or spoken in the kid’s court, it is a dense thud of silence when we walk in a room, it is not a bet someone will never win, it’s ambulance doors swallowing me overdosed at twelve years old and ready to die because of what I have already lived through – it is real – we are trying to survive the unsurvivable and none of it is stacked in our favour and it is all totally against us.”

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

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I love Taskmaster – it’s the perfect daft and gentle antidote to the stress and worry and sadness of life. The five contestants are usually a good mix of familiar and new funny folk and series 14 was my introduction to Fern Brady. (Incidentally, what a great series 14 was – it was also the first time I saw John Kearns who was fantastic – I already liked Sarah Millican and Dara Ó Briain.) Fern was immediately appealing. She has this absolutely gorgeous raspy Scottish accent, her make up and clothes were colourful and she’s refreshingly blunt. I didn’t know that she was autistic until I started following her on social media. Strong Female Character is the perfect title for her memoir – it’s so exactly who she is. It shouldn’t be surprising to read such an honest account and yet it is. Crikey, I wish more of us were courageous enough to say here I am, this is me. If we were all open about the realities of life perhaps there would be more understanding and compassion.

 Fern’s story is not an easy one – her adult diagnosis of autism is such a long time coming she endured years of pain, meltdowns, behavioural issues, and distress despite repeatedly trying to access support and help from family and professionals. The assumption that because someone is intelligent and can make eye contact they can’t be autistic is so reductive. There’s a lot of damage here – from Fern’s parents’ treatment of her to the casual indifference of a variety of health professionals. It could be a bleak read but as you’d expect there’s also plenty of dark humour with lines like, “Prozac didn’t stop me from insulting people in everyday conversations; it just lent a zen-like calm to my delivery.” Brady employs all the tools she has to get people to read this book and gain an understanding of autism – her candour embraces details of stripping, relationships, sex, the difficulty of being a female Scottish comedian, her parent’s apparent inability to see who she is. There are heart-breaking descriptions of not understanding social rules, of taking comments at face value and responding, of sincere efforts to fit in and do the right thing only to have others assume rudeness. The meltdowns are truly shocking. Brady does all of us a massive service by sharing her personal experiences. The idea that this attractive, successful, smart, and hilarious woman goes home and smashes her furniture and screams shines a light on a world which forces neurodiverse people to mask their behaviours in order to be seen as neurotypical. In my lifetime there has been a lot of progress in accepting humans don’t come cookie cutter shaped. Dare to delve beneath the surface of any of us and you’ll discover we are a mash of our own curious thoughts and behaviours. However, it doesn’t take much difference for a group of people to start commenting on it – ooh, she’s so loud, they’re too fat, why does he do that weird thing with his mouth? For a neurodiverse person to say so clearly that they are takes huge courage in a world where we are constantly drip-fed ideals to aspire to on social media, TV, newspapers etc. Brady is open about concerns that her career would be affected. What an eye-opener of a book. And bravo Fern Brady!

Smash Lits with Barlow Adams

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I just published an incredible essay by Barlow Adams at The Forge. When I first read it, I actually gasped several times and I checked with him that is was actually creative nonfiction because, damn, it’s unbelievable. Read Hideous Miracles. Do it! Then come back and check out his Smash Lits interview.

1) You are wallpaper. What is your pattern? 

Sasquatches playing hide-and-seek amongst a forest print. Like a look-and-find book, with bigfoots doing various activities—smoking, using a ouija board, catching butterflies, doing their taxes, playing Scrabble.

2) Did you have an invisible friend when you were younger?

I had so many invisible friends. I had factions of them. There were major conflicts. Empires of invisible friends rose and fell between the ages of 5 and 8.

3) What is your default pub drink?

It should be something more exciting considering I tended bar for years, but probably a 7&7 or a Moscow Mule. I’m also particularly fond of sour beers.

4)  If there was a TV show called The Masked Writer, what would your costume be?

Pangolin.

5) Do you believe human beings can spontaneously combust?

I think this is unlikely. I’ve noticed incidences have decreased drastically in frequency since camera phones.

6) What is your favourite cheese?

Manchego

7) What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Stephen King?

The Broodwich (a sandwich consisting of bread forged in darkness from wheat harvested from Hell’s Half-Acre and baked by Beelzebub, mayonnaise made from the evil eggs of a powerful dark chicken beaten into sauce by the hands of a one-eyed madman, cheese boiled from the rancid teat of a fanged cow, 666 separate meats from an animal which has maggots for blood, dijon mustard, lettuce, sun-dried tomatoes).

8) How do you organise your bookshelves?

Size (tallest to shortest) and genre.

9) What is your favourite smell?

Mahogany.

10) What is your favourite swear?

Damn. It’s all about the emphasis.

11) Who is your favourite TV detective?

Batman (World’s Greatest Detective) if he counts. If not, Columbo. Peter Falk’s aw-shucks brilliance is a work of art.

12) What words make you cringe? 

Irregardless. Also, when people use “literally” when they mean “figuratively.”

13) Do you have a favourite pen?

I do. It was purchased for me by a mysterious benefactor from marvelously talented pen-turner Julia Beach Anderson. I still don’t know who bought it. But I had long—and loudly—admired her work. It meant the world to me. I sign all my contracts with it.

14) What is the oldest piece of clothing in your wardrobe?

I have a “lucky” shirt. I had it on the day I got my kidney transplant almost 21 years ago. It’s far too ratty to wear in public at this point, but I still sleep in it on bad nights.

15) What is the last thing you Googled?

What is the world’s most valuable pen? (It’s The Fulgor Nocturnus, if you’re curious. It sold for $8 million in 2010.)

16) What would your superhero power be?

Regeneration and the ability to pee surprisingly quickly.

17) Write me a question to ask in a Smash Lits interview.

If a Greek god cursed you with a monstrous form due to your greatest flaw, what would that form be?

18) What is your go-to karaoke song?

Round Here by Counting Crows

19) How do you stop procrastinating and get on with writing? 

When it gets bad I’ve had someone I love lock me in a boring room Douglas Adams-style.

20) What question should I have asked you?

You should have asked me to tell you about my scary, awkward semi-sexy ghostly encounter.



Catch-up

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There are so many spaces for online sharing – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok etcetera – blogging can seem very old school. It doesn’t have that instant hit of likes, at least mine doesn’t, so it’s not as pleasing perhaps. I think maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve been blogging for a damn long time now, always erratically. I never schedule posts I just plonk things up when it occurs to me. Anyway, here’s a wee catch-up.

My flash, My Imaginary Boyfriend, was one of the Editor’s Choice picks at Book’s Ireland.

I published two brilliant, and very different, nonfiction pieces at The Forge:

The World I Will Not Taste by Cheryl Pappas

Landsgemeinde, Appenzell by Shane Inman

I read Oliver Burkeman’s “Four Thousand Weeks” which I think is my most highlighted book ever. Burkeman offers balm for those of us who never think we are doing enough and need to constantly strive to do more and be better dammit! As well as making me feel a whole lot better about the impossibility of living up to ridiculous standards, he cautions, “What you pay attention to will define, for you, what reality is.” And “At the end of your life, looking back, whatever compelled your attention from moment to moment is simply what your life will have been.” Simple yet powerful. I can’t recommend this book enough.

I’ve just watched Everything Everywhere All At Once and it is superb. So much better than any Marvel multiverse movie. Not only is it visually amazing and packed with action but it’s also got depth. Although the ending feels inevitable it’s still satisfying. And the weirdness (multiverses including one where people have hotdog fingers, or are rocks,) doesn’t feel odd for the sake of it, instead building layers. Loved it. Oh, and I think in the midst of 100’s of images I saw a shot of Brighton’s West Pier which, yay! And also gives me an excuse to share a snap I took of it recently which I think came out quite well.

(The world is a terrifying place which feels scarier than I’ve ever known it to be. I’m concentrating on the trivial here which sometimes feels soothing.)

Fight Night by Miriam Toews

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This is a glorious, fizzing novel about three generations of women. It’s narrated by nine-year-old Swiv, who has been suspended, again, for fighting at school and is being looked after at at home by her Grandma while her pregnant actor mum, Mooshie is working. Swiv has a wonderfully believable voice, sometimes funny, sometimes anxious, that blends her grandma’s turns of phrase with her own youthful understanding. There are many lovely passages about their day to day:

 “Grandma’s leg really hurts right below the knee and she doesn’t know why, it’s a new thing. She checked to make sure she had enough bullets in her purse so she can go out to play cards all day with her friends. When she swallows her pills she pretends they’re tiny soldiers sent off to fight the pain and sometimes she holds them up and says to them, thank you for your service, lest we forget, and then she swallows them and says play ball!”

Swiv is a worrier but to be fair does have plenty to fret about. Grandma is seriously ill and old and Swiv is entrusted with managing her medication and care. Her dad has disappeared (one of Swiv’s home-school tasks is to write her absent father a letter which forms the basis of the narration), and her aunt and grandpa both killed themselves leaving her worried about her mother’s sanity. Mooshie is often angry or upset and has demons to battle, but Grandma provides a lot of love and laughter. She has such verve for life yet doesn’t hide the sadness either. She urges Swiv to always fight. In fact, she teaches us all how to approach life with laughter even when in pain.

The novel is in two parts – part one at home and part two a trip away so Grandma can visit her cousins. All three female characters are great, although Mooshie remains at a distance to the reader. The men are mainly absent though their impact looms large. Toews is always amazing at finding the funny in the sad. She unearths it like life’s treasure. This is what you must do, she says, breathe, live, laugh. You don’t need to be familiar with Toews’s own life and previous books to enjoy this, but it’s helpful to know that the Mennonite community Grandma consistently references (but doesn’t name) is the same one that Toews came from and rejected. And Toews’s father and sister died by suicide. (All my Puny Sorrows is incredible.)

“… what makes a tragedy bearable and unbearable is the same thing – which is that life goes on.”

It’s a joy to read this bittersweet story. There’s not much plot, the trip to Fresno is a bit of a caper, and it all races along, much like life. But Swiv and Grandma are superb characters and spending time in their company is beautifully life-affirming.

Smash Lits with Kirsten Reneau

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I just published a great nonfiction flash at The Forge – “The Forgiving Kind” by Kirsten Reneau. And I got to do a Smash Lits interview too. Please enjoy.

1) What would your superhero power be?

I would like to talk to animals because I want to be able to chit chat with my dog about why she keeps trying to chase squirrels.

2) What is your favourite biscuit?

Red lobster cheddar bay biscuits. They have a hold on me.

3) You are wallpaper. What is your pattern?

Something dramatic and ornate, ideally with herons.

4) What is your default pub/bar drink?

Lately it’s been the local tavern near my house, which is cash only and does country music nights every Monday. My go-to drink sounds nasty (or at least, that’s what I’ve been told) but I promise it’s really good—it’s Jägermeister and coke. Some bartender in West Virginia always got it and I started getting it to and now it’s just my easy go-to. If I’m feeling fancy though, my default is a side-car.

5) What was the last text you sent?

“It’s SO good, right” which was to Shawn Berman about a poem we put up on Final Girl Bulletin Board.

6) Do you have a poster/picture on your wall? Describe it.

We have many posters and pictures on our walls but the one I most recently hung up is a line drawing of my very southern grandparents on new year’s (circa 1970 something) with multiple wine glasses in their hands. It’s so cool.

7) Your writing is music, what style is it?

Sad bluegrass.

8) Have you ever had a nickname?

My nickname in high school was Toast and no one could ever remember why, including me.

9) Do you have a favourite pen?

I wish I was the kind of person who had a favorite pen but mine is really just whichever one is closest.

10) Do you believe human beings can spontaneously combust?

They Might Be Giants has never lied to me before.

11) How much money did you spend yesterday?

$42, which was spent on coffee, king cake, beer, and churros.

12) What’s your worst habit?

Probably staring. I am always people watching, and sometimes I forget that people can see me watching.

13) Did you have an invisible friend when you were younger?

No, but my sister had two and we all played baseball together in the living room with balloons.

14) Who is your writer crush?

Brenda Miller.

15) What are your windows like?

Long and lovely. It’s always bright in our home.

16) Do you have any writing rituals?

My ritual is that there is no ritual. I write when I am ready and in a frenzy, which could be at any time of the day with any amount of preparation. My writing just pours out of me, which can be both good and bad.

17) What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Roxane Gay?

Something fancy that would pair with the massive amount of champagne I would also bring.

18) What question should I have asked you?

About my pets! I can talk about my dog forever.

19) Write me a question for the next Smash List interview I do

If you could do a writing retreat anywhere in the world for one week, where would you go?

20) What was the last gift you gave to someone?

A copy of Matt Mitchell’s “The Neon Hollywood Cowboy.”