Category Archives: Deborah Kay Davies

In the Media: 3rd May 2015

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In the media is a weekly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous week and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

There’s an election in the UK this week. As you’d expect, there’s been a number of articles about it, policies and where the previous coalition has left us. Huffington Post have been running a ‘Beyond the Ballot’ series. Contributions include: Vivienne Westwood, ‘The Housing Crisis – Politicians Are Criminals‘ and Denise Robertson, ‘Today, There Are No Housing Lifelines for People Who Fall on Hard Times‘. Media Diversified also have a series called ‘Other Voices’. Contributions include, Maya Goodfellow ‘Why aren’t politicians talking about racial discrimination in the job market?‘ and ‘Letting migrants drown in the Mediterranean, is this what the Tories mean by ‘British values’?‘ and ‘The pro-Tory business letter: a reminder that politics shouldn’t be dominated by a privileged few‘

Elsewhere, Zoe Williams wrote ‘10 big misconceptions politicians have about women‘ in The Pool; Deborah Orr, ‘Scotland is sending a curveball down Westminster way – and it’s not just Labour that will get hit‘ in The Guardian; Gaby Hinsliff, ‘We floating voters may be unenthused but we’re definitely not unprincipled‘ in The Guardian; Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett wrote, ‘Why I’m thinking about spoiling my ballot‘ in the New Statesman; Laura Waddell, ‘Pink Vacuum Politics‘ on Libertine’ Suzanne Moore, ‘Parliament? Over the years I’ve met several powerful men there who have no idea of boundaries‘ in the New Statesman; Hannah Pool asks, ‘Why aren’t black women voting?‘ in The Pool; Suzanne Moore, ‘I’m sick of this estate agent election‘ in The Guardian

Saturday saw the death of crime writer, Ruth Rendell. The Guardian reported her death and ran a series of articles: Val McDermid wrote, ‘No one can equal Ruth Rendell’s range or accomplishment‘; Mark Lawson, ‘Ruth Rendell and PD James: giants of detective fiction‘; Stanley Reynolds wrote her obituary; here she is ‘In Quotes‘ and if you haven’t read anything by her, The Guardian also recommend ‘Five Key Works’ while The Telegraph have, ‘The best of Ruth Rendell: 10 to read, watch and listen to‘.

And then there was that beach body ready advertisement. Responses to which ranged from Gemma Correll, ‘Hilarious Illustrations Show You How to Get “Beach Body Ready”‘ in Stylist; Hadley Freeman, ‘What is a beach body anyway?‘ in The Guardian, and Tara Costello explained, ‘Why I Stripped to Make a Statement‘ on the Huffington Post.

Congratulations to Marion Coutts on winning the Wellcome Prize. Jenny Turner writes in The Guardian as to why Coutts is her hero. The shortlist for the Encore Award was announced and includes Harriet Lane, Amanda Coe, Rebecca Hunt and Deborah Kay Davies. And Gaby Wood was ‘…made Booker’s literary director‘ reports The Bookseller.

And the woman with the most publicity this week is Leesa Cross-Smith who’s the featured writer on Atticus Review. She’s interviewed and has two stories up, ‘My Lolita Experiment‘ and ‘Dandelion Light‘; another in Synaesthesia Magazine, ‘The Darl Inn‘, and her column on Real Pants this week is ‘Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? & Girlfriendships‘.

 

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

Personal essays/memoir:

Feminism:

Society and Politics:

Music, Film and Television, Personalities:

The interviews:

If you want some fiction to read:

If you want some poetry to read:

If you want some non-fiction to read:

The lists:

Reasons She Goes to the Woods – Deborah Kay Davies

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Pearl is a young girl who lives with her mum and dad and her little brother who she refers to as ‘The Blob’. She’s growing, learning and experimenting. Sometimes this means that she does bad things like puts her baby brother on the sixth step of the stairs in their house to see what will happen to him or makes friends with Fee after giving her a Chinese burn and making her eat insect cakes made from mud. Sometimes she simply makes mistakes:

Pearl’s found her mother’s sharp scissors and is cutting an old jumper, but it won’t keep still….The Blob sucks his thumb and plays with a carpet tuft. Then he wants to get on the chair so Pearl bunks him up. Immediately he starts to scream. She grabs him. Blood is blooming on her dress, leaking from his leg. Pearl slaps her hand over his mouth so violently he stops, and realises that a point of the scissors has gouged a lump of flesh from his bare thigh.

Pearl’s punishment for this is her mother fixing a lock on her bedroom door. Pearl counters this by refusing to speak. It soon becomes evident that Pearl’s mother is struggling with issues of her own:

Pearl glances at her mother, who’s in her slippers, nightdress billowing out from her half-undone coat. Pearl thinks the flimsy pink fabric looks rude in the shop. As her mother picks up a bag of sugar, Pearl can hear her talking in an undertone, asking the sugar questions….Pearl lets go of the trolley and slinks off as her mother cradles the sugar and sings to it…

The relationship between Pearl and her mother forms one of the core elements of the book; as Pearl grows up and her mother’s mental health deteriorates further, their attachment becomes much more complex.

Going through adolescence is another key theme and Pearl’s sexual awareness is acknowledged at several different points in her development, as is her recognition of a dark presence lurking in life; this is illustrated by the skeleton girl who begins to visit her.

Reasons She Goes to the Woods is told in page-long, single paragraph vignettes. For most of the story, we are not told how old Pearl is, this information only being given to us once she reaches her late teens. This gives a sense of childhood passing in seeming timelessness, only those days where something important, upsetting or key to development earning a place in the story of youth.

I’ve written before about my ambivalence towards novels told from a child’s point of view, but I think this one works for two reasons: the child grows throughout the novel and it’s third person subjective, giving Davies license to write beyond the thoughts and sights of a young girl.

I thoroughly enjoyed Reasons She Goes to the Woods, I think it’s a brave book, in many ways. Unfortunately I think it will be overshadowed by Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing which covers similar territory while being more stylistically daring. It’s a real shame as Davies’ book is definitely worth a read.

The Bailey’s Women’s Fiction Prize Longlist 2014

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Well it’s after midnight and I’m bleary eyed but here it is, the Bailey’s Women’s Fiction Prize longlist for 2014.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Americanah

Margaret Atwood – MaddAddam

Suzanne Berne –  The Dogs of Littlefield

Fatima Bhutto – The Shadow of the Crescent Moon

Claire Cameron –  The Bear

Lea Carpenter – Eleven Days

M.J. Carter – The Strangler Vine

Eleanor Catton – The Luminaries

Deborah Kay Davies – Reasons She Goes to the Woods

Elizabeth Gilbert – The Signature of All Things

Hannah Kent – Burial Rites

Rachel Kushner – The Flamethrowers

Jhumpa Lahiri – The Lowland

Audrey Magee – The Undertaking

Eimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing

Charlotte Mendelson – Almost English

Anna Quindlen – Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Elizabeth Strout – The Burgess Boys

Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch

Evie Wyld – All The Birds, Singing

First thoughts: I’ve got a lot of reading to do! I’ve read and reviewed seven: The Luminaries, The Flamethrowers, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, Still Life with Breadcrumbs, The Burgess Boys, The Goldfinch and All the Birds, Singing. Am particularly thrilled for Eimear McBride, Anna Quindlen and Evie Wyld. I also think The Burgess Boys has been hugely underrated in the UK, so it will be wonderful to see Elizabeth Strout get the recognition she deserves.

As for the rest, Americanah, Burial Rites, The Lowland and Almost English were already high on my review pile. I have copies of The Signature of All Things and Maddaddam, although Maddaddam’s terrifying me – I love Margaret Atwood’s writing but it’s the third part of a trilogy of which I’ve read nothing and I don’t want to read the end before the beginning. I might have to hide for a long weekend to read that one!

The Dogs of Littlefield, The Bear and Eleven Days were also already on my radar and I’m really looking forward to those.

That leaves four I’ve never heard of, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

As ever, I’ll be linking my reviews on this page as I add to them. I’m excited as to what the next month of reading brings.