Base Notes by Adelle Stripe review – a reckless daughter’s aromatic youth
In the Yorkshire author’s first memoir, she recounts in tender, sometimes showy prose her difficult relationship with her complex mother and brushes with danger in her thrill-seeking yearsAdelle Stripe is the author of one novel, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile (2017), one work of nonfiction, Ten Thousand Apologies (2022) – a biography of the wilfully dysfunctional band Fat White Family – and various short stories in sundry collections. Now the North Yorkshire writer has trained her focus inward with a coming-of-age memoir that recounts the story of growing up with a complex mother and how she herself became a “reckless daughter”. Authors who turn to memoir face certain dilemmas. They must wrestle with precisely how much to reveal and what to conceal; which are the most resonant parts and how to avoid self-indulgence. The best in the genre manage such issues with invisible aplomb, while others can seem like leafing through family photo albums whose pictures mean more to the subject than to anyone else.The fact that Stripe has elected to write hers in the second person is jarring. Second person can work effectively in fiction, but memoir is all about intimacy, disclosure. “Come in,” she seems to be saying here, “but stay over there. No, further back.”Base Notes: The Scents of a Life by Adelle Stripe is published by White Rabbit (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Continue reading...
In the Yorkshire author’s first memoir, she recounts in tender, sometimes showy prose her difficult relationship with her complex mother and brushes with danger in her thrill-seeking years
Adelle Stripe is the author of one novel, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile (2017), one work of nonfiction, Ten Thousand Apologies (2022) – a biography of the wilfully dysfunctional band Fat White Family – and various short stories in sundry collections. Now the North Yorkshire writer has trained her focus inward with a coming-of-age memoir that recounts the story of growing up with a complex mother and how she herself became a “reckless daughter”. Authors who turn to memoir face certain dilemmas. They must wrestle with precisely how much to reveal and what to conceal; which are the most resonant parts and how to avoid self-indulgence. The best in the genre manage such issues with invisible aplomb, while others can seem like leafing through family photo albums whose pictures mean more to the subject than to anyone else.
The fact that Stripe has elected to write hers in the second person is jarring. Second person can work effectively in fiction, but memoir is all about intimacy, disclosure. “Come in,” she seems to be saying here, “but stay over there. No, further back.”
Base Notes: The Scents of a Life by Adelle Stripe is published by White Rabbit (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
Continue reading...
