Just a quick note to say how touched I was by the kind comments/e-mails after the last edition of Bits. Co-sleeping with a toddler in a half-body cast, combined with a period of insomnia (why does it always arrive when it’s least wanted!?) has been rough, but I’m currently away with my daughter for the weekend and listening to the birds tweet as I write, which is bliss :) Have a lovely weekend/ rest of half-term.
Above the paywall today: some solid gold telly options; what it was like to be raised by Erica “zipless fuck” Jong; turning to Christianity in your 20s; and a moving account of “SIDS interrupted”.
Below the paywall today: an adoption scandal; a tender short story; a column on parenting after losing a child; a grim boost to thinspo 2.0; and a list of budget finds making me happy (a little treat for former fans of The List.)
This piece by Lamorna Ash is the best thing I’ve read in Vogue in ages. After interviewing two comedians turned priests and travelling all over the country to meet other young Christians (as many left-wing as there are right-wing, she notes), Ash —a liberal atheist in her late twenties—found herself suddenly drawn to Christianity. Both shocked and fascinated by her burgeoning faith, she grapples generously and thoughtfully with how she arrived there, and how she navigated its historic persecution of the queer community.
“I arrived at Christianity as an adult and so without any residual trauma; it has been easier for me to hold the conviction that there is no tension nor contradiction between my sexuality and engagement with the Christian faith.”
Ash is the author of a previous memoir, Dark, Salt, Clear. This piece made me really excited to read her second—winging its way to me as I type.
And here’s Molly Jong-Fast for Vanity Fair, on what it was like to be the daughter of Erica Jong, the writer who became a celebrity after publishing for sexy feminist 1994 novel, Fear of Flying. One thing that’s abundantly clear from the recent spate of celeb mommy memoirs—it’s never fun to be the daughter.
“For the addictive personality, the junkie itch from coming off celebrity can never ever be cured, not with all the adoration in the world. Mom was never a normal person again. My stepfather, Ken, tried to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed, tried to treat her like a queen. Maybe it worked? I don’t know. I never knew her when she was unfamous. She would always say that I was everything to her. She would always tell anyone who listened that I was her greatest accomplishment in life. I always knew that wasn’t the truth.”
James Bloodworth’s investigative reporting is impressively immersive, and this extract in The Times from his new book on the manosphere is as grimly fascinating as his first one on working in an Amazon fulfilment centre. Bloodworth spent a week on the £7,500 week-long ‘Men of Action’ bootcamp run by ‘masculinity entrepreneur’ Michael Sartain, who is a Mr Potato Head made up of Dan Bilzerian, Hugh Hefner, Andrew Tate and Neil Strauss. I don’t think I can stomach a whole book on these men—but the piece is riveting (and another warning bell.)
Before I was born, my sister, Daisy, died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). She was 3 and a half months old. I never knew her, but the rest of my family did, and they were changed by not just her death, but her life, too. Archie Bland’s piece for The Guardian about his son, who survived what he calls “SIDS interrupted” and what he has learned about parenting a disabled child, is gorgeous: bold, curious, and optimistic.
I was lucky enough to interview two of Britain’s best contemporary authors, David Szalay and Natasha Brown, at Charleston Literary Festival on Sunday. I loved teasing out the parallels between Flesh and Universality, including how both authors impose constraints on their writing (in Natasha’s case, page numbers; in David’s, taut prose and limited dialogue); how much agency we have in our lives vs. how much we are buffeted by the decisions of others; the precarity of contemporary life/ the modern workforce; and why economic forces might shape our lives more than the political. Natasha worked in finance before publishing two books—despite the critical success of her two books, she told me she will soon return to her day job.
If you’re looking for a new who/whydunnit, I hard rec Dept. Q, whose cast and writer/director, Scott Frank (Godless, The Queen’s Gambit) I interviewed at both Hay and the show’s premiere, this week. Carl (Matthew Goode) plays an irascible British detective investigating the cold case of Merritt (Chloe Pirrie) a prosecutor presumed dead. (Ding dong, she’s not.) It’s based on the best-selling nordic noir series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, but has been transplanted to Edinburgh. Frank’s sense of humour is deliciously brash, and I found the unsentimental take on mental health (“everyone’s got their shit; all the interesting people are fucked up” he told me) very effective. There’s also an excellent supporting cast, including Kelly Macdonald as a droll psychiatrist and Kate Dickie as a jaded police chief. I’m not paid to say this: I hope there’s a s2.
I really enjoyed Sirens, the trippy, absurdist comedy drama by Molly Smith Metzler about an ultra-rich hippie dictator/ ornithologist, Kiki (Julianne Moore), her perky, pastel-clad assistant, Simone (Milly Alcock) and Simone’s cynical, troubled sister, Devon (an excellent Meghann Fahey) trying to free Simone from what she believes is a cult.
