Hi everyone! Happy New Year! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and staying healthy!
I am writing to you from my bed, which I am now surgically fused to as I caught the dreaded Rona and haven’t left my room in eight days. Within the span of a single week my entire family has met the same fate, despite us inhabiting different cities and continents (Coincidence??? Please hold while I consult my horoscope app for credible, evidenced-based answers).
Much to the relief of anyone who has had to endure a phone call with me recently - my symptoms are finally subsiding. Today was monumental as I found the strength to hoist myself into a pair of jeans and even mustered the energy to cook. This is great news for me and an encouraging sign of recovery, though the piercing wails from UberEats headquarters rang out across London as they mourned the loss of their highest paying customer.
We’re told when life gives us lemons we should make lemonade. It might sound trite, but it’s still a logic I can get behind: look for the good even when things are bad.
But sometimes, kids, the lemons life gives you are shrivelled, juice-less husks needlessly packaged in single-use plastic from the Tesco around the corner (not the really big Tesco near the station, the smaller one up the road with the broken ATM and the middle-aged man at the till who always asks if you have a boyfriend).
You know from books and films and years of well meaning parental advice that you’re meant to find a silver lining. That with the sweet comes the sour. But boy, let me tell you, these Tesco lemons are bone dry. Like getting blood from a stone. And so there is no lemonade to be made, no lessons to be gleaned. They’re just really shit lemons. And so you decide to make a different drink (cocktail?) and take it one day - maybe even one hour - at a time.
As a new year begins and the world continues to spin at the same dizzying pace, I know that I’ll have to take it one day at a time to stay afloat. Just as at the start of the pandemic, once again I’m finding comfort in the words of writers much wiser than me and my Netflix-fried brain. I shared this quote in my first ever newsletter back in March 2020, and I thought I’d include it here, in case there’s any solace to be found for you now:
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott
Hope you’re hanging in there, friends. One day at a time. Bird by bird, buddy.
*A huge thanks to Tesco for sponsoring today’s newsletter.
RECS
Mr. Loverman - Bernardine Evaristo
Sometimes you finish a book and think, “that was okay but I wouldn’t read it again.” Other times you wonder, “would it be weird if I mailed fan art to the author even though I can’t draw and also should I ask for their autograph so I can tattoo it on my forehead?” Well, when it comes to anything by Bernardine Evaristo, my sentiments are summed up by the latter. You’re probably already familiar with her Booker Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other (if not, what are you waiting for?), but this earlier piece of work is just as much of a home run. Mr. Loverman tells the story of Barrington Walker, a 74-year-old Antiguan-born man based in Hackney, East London. He’s married with two adult daughters, but has been harbouring a secret his whole life: he’s in a relationship with his childhood best friend, Morris. It’s a tender portrait of intimacy and friendship. Of marriage and parenthood. Of prejudice and myth. Of what it means to be queer and old in a place that both is and isn’t your home. Delivered with Evaristo’s signature razor-sharp wit, it’s a beautiful read you won’t soon forget.
We Were Always Here
This was one of the most moving podcasts I listened to in 2021. We Were Always Here is an eight-part documentary series about the UK’s HIV epidemic, as told by those who have historically been erased from the mainstream narrative. Activist and campaigner Mark Thompson hosts the series, engaging in candid and insightful conversations with people who were both affected by the virus, and those who mobilised in their communities to take action. By centering the voices of men and women of colour, sex workers, clinicians and trans activists - Thompson offers us a different take of the HIV crisis. It’s a crucial piece of Britain’s history, and I think it should be required listening for everyone in the country!Happy Hour - Marlowe Granados
One of my favourite books of 2021? Sex and the City energy but make it intellectually substantial? Yes and yes. I don’t know where to start with Marlowe Granados’ debut novel other than to say I adored it beyond measure. Happy Hour is the story of one hot, humid New York summer, where 21-year-old Isa Epley and friend Gala arrive to the city with only one item on their agenda: pleasure. The pair is penniless, but are dogged in their determination to live a life of luxury. They attend lavish parties and brush up with the city’s elite each night, but as the sun rises they return to the reality of splitting a hotdog in their cramped sublet and hunting for the next cash-only paying gig. Granados has an ability to tap into the zeitgeist with a humour and clarity that is truly striking, and I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of this author in the years to come. Go buy this book and then call me when you’re done.For A Better World Season 2
I’ve written about this podcast in a previous newsletter, but the show is back with a second season that is well worth chatting about. For A Better World is a production of the Portland-based non-profit, the Fair World Project. In season 1 they explored Nestlé’s catastrophic decision to drop the fair trade certification on their UK KitKat bar and this season they set about investigating Chobani’s recently released “fair trade dairy” label and its too-good-to-be true claims that it’s promoting worker wellbeing. It’s an enormously eye-opening series; I have learned so much about America’s dairy industry, the hazardous conditions its workers face, and what robust and meaningful solutions to these issues look like (*ahem* collective bargaining). Here’s an excerpt from episode 2:
For too long US labour law has made it harder for farmworkers to raise their voices for better working conditions. A lack of organising protections has helped keep wages low and workplace protections inadequate. Since the founding of this country, in one way or another, powerful farmers, legislators and companies have worked to keep farmworkers an exploited and exploitable class. The rules of the old plantations got re-written and adopted into laws. But the outlines of the situation remained, with first mostly Black and now mostly immigrant workers providing their labour, skill and knowledge to build wealth for those at the other end of the supply chain… As long as we stay invested in the pastoral image of farming, it’s hard to address the real conditions at these dairy farms. When we see beyond the fantasy, there’s possibility - real possibility - for transformative change.
Keeping the House - Tice Cin
Another debut novel? You bet. This is a vibrant, poignant vignette of North London’s Turkish communities during the ‘90s and ‘00s. Keeping the House spans three generations, telling the story of “the women who keep their family - and their family business - afloat, juggling everything from police surveillance to trickier questions of community, belonging and love.” Cin is an interdisciplinary artist and it shows - the way she stitches her words and stories together is unconventional and above all, entirely unique. It’s a delight like no other to step into her world.Who They Was - Gabriel Krauze
This is a gripping piece of auto-fiction about one young man and his involvement in London’s violent crime scene. He’s a gang member and a university student studying English literature. He can silence a lecture hall with his deft insights on Shakespeare, just as well as he can brutally rob a stranger of their possessions. It’s the debut novel (and part autobiography) of Gabriel Krauze, and it is told with a boldness quite unlike anything I’ve ever read. Krauze is specific in his aim not to glamorise this lifestyle, but he hopes to show the humanity of people who participate in it, too. When I say it’s an intense read I do mean it, so it might not be a good fit for everyone. But it’s a perspective-shifting piece of work with a unique, rhythmic prose that’ll be sure to stop you in your tracks.Don’t have much in the way of recipes to share because of the previously mentioned UberEats marathon. My body has also been severely deprived of vegetables (once again because of the aforementioned UberEats marathon), so today I’ll be making Nigella’s spiced cauliflower and pomegranate salad, which has been on heavy rotation for me this winter. I will also 100% be making this vegan pudding over the weekend and washing it down with half a dozen cookies because, balance.
Assembly - Natasha Brown
Oh, don’t mind me, just another debut novel (I think we’re 4/5 at this point). This is a surprisingly slim book, barely hovering at one hundred pages. The length might seem an unusual choice for a fictional debut, but when every word is chosen with such precision, the impact is as powerful as a hefty tome. Assembly is narrated by a Black-British woman whose name we are never told. As she heads to her boyfriend’s wealthy family estate for the weekend, she begins to question where she finds herself in her life: the choices she’s made, the larger forces affecting those choices. This is a story about Britain’s entrenched, corrosive class system and the racism that is baked into the foundations of the country. It’s about freedom and fear and as Brown writes, “about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life.” Go read it. Now!Sweet Bobby
If jaw-dropping heart-stopping reveals are your thing, you’ll want to listen to this. Sweet Bobby is a production from the self-described “slow news” media company, Tortoise. It’s a meticulous, engaging investigation into what they believe is likely Britain’s most elaborate and worst-ever catfishing scandal. I’d advise against operating heavy machinery when listening to episode three because I SWEAR TO GOD you’re going to pass out.
Well, that’s it for me this time. Hope one of these recommendations has piqued your interest or at the very least, made you laugh. I’m off now to ride out the rest of my social isolation and also pre-emptively seek legal counsel as I have a hunch Tesco will be filing a lawsuit after my claim that they sponsored today’s newsletter. Stay safe out there friends.
Sending love,
Arielle