Shelf Improvement: Colours
In which I think about improvised bookmarks, affairs, and books with a colour in the title.
This week I reread The Color Purple by Alice Walker ahead of going to see the new film, and really enjoyed the reread - one of those books that I think my first encounter with was at the wrong time. I have been trying to work out why this was (being in my teenage Bret Easton Ellis phase was probably a factor.) The copy I have now was given to me by wonderful Anna Burtt, and the physical process of picking it up and turning the pages was a really special one, one that reminded me why I like BOOKS so much, as in the physical object of a book - the bits you add to it; marginalia, improvised bookmarks that become time capsules (train tickets, receipts, postcards), and the bits that come with each edition, this one being a Women’s Press copy, a publishing house founded by writer Stephanie Dowrick and entrepreneur Naim Attallah, and that published The Color Purple in Britain in 1983. And whenever I think of Alice Walker, I think of Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, who died in 1960 and whose grave was left unmarked until Walker found it in 1973 and commissioned a headstone, which read: A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH. The stories contained in a book are never just the ones written on the pages. Maybe all those ingredients, that I didn’t have the first time round, are what made the difference? Or maybe I am just over my Bret Easton Ellis phase, finally, after all that development of personal taste, and therapy.
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray is hilarious and moving novel about one young woman, her first office job, and the disastrous affair she embarks on with an older, married colleague. Hera has previously only dated women, and her relationship with Arthur baffles all her friends as they witness Hera’s spiral. Her twenty-something-unleashed-on-the-world narration is very funny (Hera recalls watching the 2006 film Bobby and wondering if other people know about the Kennedys: Such bad luck, that family) and she is surrounded by brilliantly real and charming characters. One review compared it to a combination of Nobel prizewinning Annie Ernaux’s diary of an affair A Simple Passion and Bridget Jones’s Diary, which I think is actually very true. The Green Dot of the title refers to the little green dot that implies a person is online (but not messaging you, agony!!) (Oxford: come meet Madeleine next week.)
I love love love the novella Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades, a polyphonic coming-of-age tale set in Queens, following a group of girls from the beginning of their lives to college, or to work, or to marriage, or to death, or another combination - and the girls pass in and out of the book, their voices clear but their names ever-changing. It is such a clever way of telling a story, of showing the infinite differences between the girls as well as the monolithic way the world thinks of them and dismisses them, and makes for a completely unique reading experience. It’s wonderful.
Another short and brilliant novel is White Houses by Amy Bloom, a fictionalised account of the relationship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena ‘Hick’ Hickok. A beautiful, heartbreaking, often funny account of love, passion and politics.
And finally, a non-fiction book I return to often, Black Milk by Elif Shafak - a blend of memoir and literary history, exploring Shafak’s experiences with postnatal depression, her writing life, and the histories of other women writers. A beautifully and cleverly layered piece of writing with many entry points for a reader, whether you’re interested in the memoir elements on motherhood and womanhood, in the writing processes of a hugely successful novelist, or in the histories of other writers throughout time.
If you enjoyed this instalment and want to share it with a friend, please do! If you enjoyed this instalment and wish to be a paid subscriber you will get a) my eternal gratitude and b) a monthly bonus back issue from Shelf Improvement’s former life on tinyletter, until I run out, which will be a while, because there are at least 45.
Happy reading!
Elizabeth (she/her)
P.S. The photo is one I took to use up the end of a black & white roll of film and was going to be a throwaway but actually I rather like it. I take pics (normally more successfully) and post them here, and am in the process of figuring out the best way to sell prints of them, so if there are any you especially like and want to own - tell me! I am trying to move house this year!