The book's title comes from instructions her mother left with her papers, a directive Albertine fortunately ignored. Her deconstruction of these documents turns the memoir into a sort of therapeutic whodunit. And the way she tells the tale of her mother's dramatic final night a little at a time makes that story into a propulsive chorus to the song that is the rest of the book. To Throw Away Unopened is enthusiastically chaotic, bursting with asides, footnotes, photos and quotes…The effect is an echo of the cluttered closets and drawers she finds herself excavating once her parents are gone, as well as of the distracted mind of a middle-aged woman trying to balance a creative life with seemingly endless obligations to other people…But where Albertine describes herself as frustrated, exhausted and repressed in real life, on the page she is wry and vibrant, and seems to hold nothing back.
'Fierce, direct, unashamed. She masks nothing ... Scythes through the myths, the distortions, the adornments and finds the rich, distinctive stories underneath.'The Sunday Times
'A chronicle of outsiderness ... Searingly honest ... A painstaking and painful dissection of familial fallout.'The Observer
What was I fighting for? Even now I'm not sure. Something so old and so deep, it has no words, no shape, no logic.
Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Music, Boys, Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty.
To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power, and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in blood-letting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger. It is a brutal expose of human dysfunctionality, the impossibility of true intimacy, and the damage wrought upon us by secrets and revelations, siblings and parents.
Yet it is also a testament to how we can rebuild ourselves and come to face the world again. It is a portrait of the love stories that constitute a life, often bringing as much pain as joy. With the inimitable blend of humour, vulnerability, and intelligence that makes Viv Albertine one of our finest authors working today, To Throw Away Unopened smashes through layers of propriety and leads us into a new place of savage self-discovery.
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To Throw Away Unopened
'Fierce, direct, unashamed. She masks nothing ... Scythes through the myths, the distortions, the adornments and finds the rich, distinctive stories underneath.'The Sunday Times
'A chronicle of outsiderness ... Searingly honest ... A painstaking and painful dissection of familial fallout.'The Observer
What was I fighting for? Even now I'm not sure. Something so old and so deep, it has no words, no shape, no logic.
Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Music, Boys, Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty.
To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power, and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in blood-letting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger. It is a brutal expose of human dysfunctionality, the impossibility of true intimacy, and the damage wrought upon us by secrets and revelations, siblings and parents.
Yet it is also a testament to how we can rebuild ourselves and come to face the world again. It is a portrait of the love stories that constitute a life, often bringing as much pain as joy. With the inimitable blend of humour, vulnerability, and intelligence that makes Viv Albertine one of our finest authors working today, To Throw Away Unopened smashes through layers of propriety and leads us into a new place of savage self-discovery.
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Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940171531072 |
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Publisher: | Faber and Faber |
Publication date: | 10/04/2018 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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