25 Comments

"It will only ever teach what privileged white men want you to learn" brings me back to a previous chapter about drugged grannies. The plot thickens as they say but it involves a lot more than grannies and white women. This reads like all that missing from news and schools and what not.

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Sep 10Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Daaaaaang!!!! If only every young woman received the same education Bridget is now getting. Brilliant chapter. And so enviable!

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Sep 9Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Another brilliant scene. It’s so visual and sensual, it feels like I’m there. I love this for Bridget. Even when she makes a mistake the women are gentle with her.

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author

I think this was my way of being there.

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Sep 10Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Ahhhh. That tracks!

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“Fewer meetings than at Yellow” - Deftly you show how neighborhoods acquire different characters in anarchy, and temperaments and the habits of class persist. Such a funny way to convey so much. Who doesn’t feel just a little liberated by moving to a place with “fewer meetings”? 😂

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author

🙋🏻‍♀️😂

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Sep 8Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Goosebumps again! This is mighty fine writing and storytelling, Eleanor.

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author

❤️

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Sep 8Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

“You are whatever you say you are, and every time a person is who they really are, they widen the definition of what it is to be human, whether you’re fat or thin or loud or quiet, or gay or straight or male or female or been born a girl but would prefer to be a boy or be none of those things at all, who you are, the definition of you is your right to claim.”

A novel is the fruit that contains seeds like this. All else can rot away in time, be eaten, wasted, end up on the compost heap or in the shitpit. But some of the words come up for another generation. Woohoo Eleanor, I travel back in time and sit among these women.

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Yes!

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author

🙌🏻❤️

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"My dad says Status Quo should get their hair cut.” Of course, you mean the rock band...

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What an education!

Eleanor, I’m echoing what’s been said. This is damn fine writing—writing for this moment!

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author

Thank you 😊

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Sep 7Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

You're a pure novelist Eleanor. The cinematic capturing of the world, the dialogue, the meaning not as opinion but as action-- The total this is fucking really happening nature of your work. They're movies on the page. The kind you watch on the Criterion channel

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author

There are days when that kind of thing is what I need to hear. Today is one of those days. Movies on the page - that’s exactly how it feels when I write.xx

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I really can’t fathom why this isn’t in bookstores. Hope publishing it here will lead to more interest from presses.

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author

Me too. Reader support helps hugely. The higher the visible numbers, the more confident a publisher will be in projected sales. So all cheering is very much appreciated. Maybe a publisher will pick it up….

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Sep 7Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Loved listening to this! I can already see why this is going to be an important book of our times.

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author

Thank you

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Sep 7Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

“Why did the end of the world always end up in the toilet”. Beautiful juxtaposition of epic annihilistic drama and the bog. Made me laugh a lot.

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author

🙌🏻

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"Patriarky"—a lovely touch, with Bridget striving to keep up with her new friends and not quite managing it because the word (or concept) was simply not in the vocabulary of the culture was brought up in.

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author

Thanks. It made me laugh.

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