"I wanted to be talking choice in a way that was routed in a social context, and that was true to the particularity and intimacy that I shared with my mum at the end of her life."
Marianne Brooker is here to talk about her Women's Prize for Non-Fiction shortlisted essay, INTERVALS, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Marianne talks about her life and living with her mother who was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. The book is a blend of memoir, philosophy, literary criticism, and politics.
It's a tough but incredibly beautiful read.
Rippling Points
2.05 - When Marianne decided this story about her mother was going to be a book
3.40 - 'Trying, circling, avoiding' - setting down to write a book like this
4.30 - How Marianne would categorises this book
7:00 - On planning or not planning the book
8:44 - When Marianne's mother developed primary progressive multiple sclerosis
10:20 - Finding a voice and coming up with a 'vocabulary'
12:20 - The 'forces' in the book and Marianne's mother
16:10 - Marianne's relationship with her mother.
20:00 - What primary progressive multiple sclerosis is.
22:20 - Marianne on 'choice'
25:21 - When Marianne found a video of her mother.
Reference Points
Writers
Roland Barthes
Annie Ernaux
Clarissa Pinkola Estés - Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Saidiya Hartman
Alice Hattrick
Sophie Lewis
Sam Mills
Margery Williams - The Velveteen Rabbit
Filmmakers
Chantal Akerman
