What else is there?
On Peter Andre, mystery and companionship of books
Hello Friends,
How are you?
Last time I wrote it was from the fag end of pregnancy. Now I’m typing as fast as I can as my 3-month-old sleeps, her face occasionally animated by whatever infants dream about.
Despite my basic grasp of how babies are made, I really can’t say where this child comes from, with her quick smile and the small gleaming eyes of a beetle. A surprise pregnancy amplifies the thought, who are you? and I spent much of her gestation with Peter Andre’s questionable mega hit ‘Mysterious Girl’ playing on loop in my head. You can read all the books you like, I guess, but nothing imprints on the psyche like primary school discos.
I have been happy lately. At night, when my 3-year-old has given up on her own bed and clambered into mine, her hair hay-like and her body insistent even in sleep, I sit up in the sliver of space left beside her and feed the baby and read. As my body mothers on into the small hours, books are the escape hatch for my mind.
A character in John Williams’ novel Stoner says ‘lust and learning...that's really all there is’. Lust is something of a remote memory right now, but I think of Audre Lorde’s definition of the erotic as ‘the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.’ My life doesn’t look especially productive at the moment; I am between writing projects and on leave from paid work. But I am tending to my babies and books are tending to me. What else is there1
Here are some books I recommend, at 3am or any other time.
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (a complicated - to say the least- love story set against the dissolution of the GDR).
‘Agaat’ by Marlene Van Neikirk (A haunting South African saga which sat on my shelf for 7 years before I got round to reading it. Incredible).
‘The Gastronomical Me’ by MFK Fisher (the best food writing I have ever read. Come for the strawberry jam, stay for the sentences).
‘Liars’ by Sara Manguso (a white knuckle read about the dissolution of a marriage).
The poetry collections ‘The Penny Dropping’ by Helen Farish and ‘That Broke Into Shining Crystals’ by Richard Scott.
I also reread ‘The End of The Affair’ by Graham Greene and it remains perfect.
Much love,
Anna
Yes, even now, in America in 2025. Especially now. Joy is never a mistake.