I kept putting myself in danger, and I couldn't make it stop. It rarely felt like a choice, though, of course, it was. It's only the death drive, my dear, Freud would likely tell me, if I lay my body down on his carpet covered couch. Everybody needs a little oblivion. Besides, what is the fantasy of the knight on a white charger if not an abandonment wish? A desire to be rescued from your own life by a story. KG: The narrative of the book starts seven months after your last drink. Why did you want to begin here, rather than in the throes of addiction?

An intimate, raw, empathetic story of loss, recovery, love and human fragility. This Ragged Grace is a beautifully-written and intricately-observed masterpiece of a memoir” Octavia Bright was 27 when she found herself in a psychiatrist’s office being told she was an alcoholic. She writes: “I knew I drank habitually, but I felt that things hadn’t got messy enough to warrant the exaggerated language he was using: alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous.” Adding: “I felt judged, though I later came to see the judgment was my own.” So when I learnt Bright had a book out I had to get hold of it. And so did half of Wellington judging by how long the reserves list was. KG: The writing of your thesis – on hysteria, Spanish cinema and Louise Bourgeois – is included in the book, and feeds its way in. How did you see its relation to this project? For as long as I can remember, I have preferred the intensity of experiences considered worth writing about – great loves, dangerous adventures, big ideas – to the monotony of my negative thoughts, critical and bullying, a relentless commentary on whatever I thought or did. I can’t say when they started but I don’t recall a time without them. There was no singular trauma that set things off, but I was a sensitive child, thin-skinned, and absorbed the world around me without a filter. It often felt as if my mind was determined to self-sabotage. The predictable beats of daily life offered no protection, so I sought out experiences or feelings I could get lost in.The writing style was similar to some of my favourites, Deborah Levy and Joan Didion, and also like Olivia Laing's discussions of loneliness in The Lonely City. Like these other authors there are references to philosophy, psychology, and art among the introspective thoughts and past experiences. I would highly recommend this memoir to anyone who enjoys thoughtful and well written prose, as well as those who appreciate bravery and honesty in their storytelling, KG: From the instantaneous drive of the addict to the long work of recovery and the chronic illness of Alzheimer’s, the book also oscillates between different ideas of time. An extraordinary, electrifying book about loss, chaos, addiction and death, and the wild work of staying tender in the face of it’

I think where I really began to be increasingly drawn in, was in her account of something which happens to us all – unless we die very young – that turn, where the child whom at some level still exists in all of us, however adult we are, becomes the parent to a parent moving inexorably towards their own dying days. And this is starkly so when a parent develops dementia. It is not just the failure of the body, it is a sense of someone losing themselves, being lost to us. An extraordinary, electrifying book about loss, chaos, addiction and death, and the wild work of staying tender in the face of it” Spanning 7 years, each chapter explores a year in Bright’s life beginning with her ascent into recovery from alcohol addiction which coincided with her Father’s descent into Alzheimer’s. I kept putting myself in danger, and I couldn’t make it stop. It rarely felt like a choice, though, of course, in some ways it was. It’s only the death drive, my dear, Freud would likely tell me, if I lay my body down on his carpet-covered couch. Everybody needs a little oblivion. Besides, what is the fantasy of the knight on a white charger if not an abandonment wish? A desire to be rescued from your own life by a story. But if addiction is rooted in the will to forget, recovery is an act of remembering – a slow reconnection with the parts of yourself that slipped out of reach while you hungered for escape. A truly enlightening read: poetic, courageous and surprising. Beautiful, intelligent prose and such a brave journey into art, family and the deep structures of an addictive personality. On top of that This Ragged Grace is a love letter to the sea and the wisdom we share with it. I loved it’

We tend to think of grace as to do with smoothness, elegance or the divine, but I’m more interested in the ragged kind. Like perfection or completion, smoothness is a false ideal: friction is where you meet reality. Instead, I look to the grace of natural processes that prevail in spite of everything – the flowers that grow on a volcano, the skin that grows over a wound, the forgiveness at the heart of love, the generosity of time.”⁣

The Times Scrupulously honest . . . Threaded through with tantalizing glimpses of the world of archaeology, Tarlow’s book is a raw, courageous examination of a sad ending to an uneasy relationship.OB: I didn’t because it feels like they happened to someone else. When you make a big change like getting sober there is a disruption to a continuous sense of identity. I found it more exposing to write the later chapters because they are so much more who I am now, even if there’s nothing that extreme in them. My wild, addict self – she was fun to write. That’s the difficult thing with writing about dysfunction – those moments of extreme behaviour are often electrifying, both as a reader and a writer. It also reminded me, a little, of Helen McDonald’s Hawk, another book riven by the deep loss of a loved parent, which has things to offer the reader in their own journey’s of loss. This is one of the truest books I have ever read about addiction. Bright is young when she finds herself facing the unpalatable truth that she is an alcoholic. This is a memoir of recovery over many years. It has a beautiful and tragic counterpoint in that as she begins to put her life together, her father's life begins to fall apart. Dementia is unravelling him as fast as she is discovering who she really is. One very small point which may jar some readers and kudos to Bright for mentioning it a few times - it’s evident she grew up with lots of privilege. For example I found myself asking a few times how she was living in a flat by herself and travelling whilst doing a PhD. Anyway very small quibble and Bright mentions it more than once, explaining that this is an important factor in aiding her recovery.

Instead, I was lost to the possibilities suggested by that text. It was from a man with a luxuriant moustache I’d been talking to online – he wore loud shirts and had an eccentric way with capital letters that made me think he’d be a good distraction. And I wanted to be distracted: I was newly sober and itching for another way to get out of my head.This Ragged Grace is a courageous work, filled with a deep tenderness and generosity and authenticity, the voice of Octavia Bright stays with me, it is honest, intricate, raw and real. This Ragged Grace is so beautiful, so bold and so Bright’ I kept putting myself in danger, and I couldn't make it stop. It rarely felt like a choice, though, of course, in some ways it was. It's only the death drive, my dear, Freud would likely tell me, if I lay my body down on his carpet-covered couch. Everybody needs a little oblivion. Besides, what is the fantasy of the knight on a white charger if not an abandonment wish? A desire to be rescued from your own life by a story. But if addiction is rooted in the will to forget, recovery is an act of remembering - a slow reconnection with the parts of yourself that slipped out of reach while you hungered for escape. I knew I would love this book because a) Dolly Alderton recommended it b) the Sunday Times Culture magazine recommended it and c) I recently started listening to the Literary Friction podcast (may or may not have been another Dolly recommendation…) and love it.