Dear GFPs,
A slight break from normal programming today, as I have felt compelled to write a post about Naomi Alderman’s new book, The Strangers, which I one hundred per cent recommend everyone reads. It is an incredibly powerful piece of writing and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since I read it.
But first, a brief content warning. I don’t think there are any spoilers in what I’ve written below although to be honest I’m not convinced that this is a book you can spoil; it’s not heavily plot-driven in that way and the book doesn’t rest on twists and turns for effect (it does still have a plot, don’t worry!) But there are things that I think Alderman is trying to say that are best experienced by reading the book fresh, and I will be talking about how specific parts of the book inspired specific reactions in me, so my recommendation is that if you haven’t read it yet, do that first and then come back and read this (if you like!). And, as you will surely know if you’ve read any reviews of The Strangers, BIG caution note for pregnancy loss.
And just before we begin, a brief reminder that the new GFP community is up and running and already hosting conversations on books, films, and, most exciting of all, woman-focused research! I’ve dropped in a couple of films I enjoyed recently…as well as a book I enjoyed a bit less than I expected! If you’re a paid GFP don’t forget to join the conversation here:
An unrounded story
In my mother’s house there hangs a photo of me as a baby, gazing joyfully at my mother who gazes joyfully back at me.
I adore this photo. It seems to me to capture a moment of the purest love. How lucky I am, I always think as I walk past, to be one half of that joyful connection.
I was reminded of this photo as I was reading Naomi Alderman’s new book, The Strangers, because she describes what sounds like a very similar photo of her as a baby gazing adoringly at her own mother:
It is a photograph of her being pleased with my pleasure in her. The way that a look passes between a mother and a baby: I am pleasing, I am pleased, you are pleased.
The similarity is striking — but that is not the only reason I particularly noticed this description. I also noticed it because of the context in which Alderman tells us about her photo capturing this particular intimate moment between mother and baby: her book exploring the intertwined grief of her multiple pregnancy losses and the death of her mother. I noticed it because — like I suspect has happened to Alderman with her own photo — over the years of my own pregnancy losses this photo has transformed from an uncomplicated symbol of joyful love into something slightly different. It has taken on an additional, more bittersweet resonance.
If a woman is a mother, she is 'just a mum'. But a woman without children is not even a mother, not even accorded that one area of expertise.
I always knew that I would read Naomi Alderman’s new book. She is one of that rarified group of writers whose new book I will be buying whatever it’s about, whether or not the premise appeals to me. I am here for the ride with Alderman, wherever she chooses to go. And I’m saying that because if another writer had written this book I’m not sure I would have picked it up. I was just not that drawn to the idea — a weird new animal? I couldn’t really see how this would lead to a reckoning with what it means to be human, which is, I think, a central strand that runs through all of Alderman’s work and which I am interested in.
But I trust Alderman’s brain, and so I believed that while I wasn’t immediately drawn in by the blurb (unlike The Power which, for obvious reasons, I was always going to pick up), this would be a book worth reading. And once again, my Naomi Alderman philosophy has been proven right: this beautiful, strange book is absolutely worth reading.