Patrick Graney
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Fit
By Sammy Wright
And Other Stories 240pp £10
A friend of mine observed recently that some people tell stories in a way that is ‘all event’. Sammy Wright’s debut novel, Fit, is the novelistic equivalent. It is a fascinating and visceral portrait of child poverty and social division, subjects on which Wright, a teacher and member of the Social Mobility Commission, is a significant authority.
Fit follows the teenage years of Rose, a timid student in foster care who is catapulted to modelling fame by a single Instagram photo. Rose experiences a double alienation, both from her friends up north and from middle-class creatives in London. The latter are convinced that they are
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It wasn’t until 1825 that Pepys’s diary became available for the first time. How it was eventually decrypted and published is a story of subterfuge and duplicity.
Kate Loveman tells the tale.
Kate Loveman - Publishing Pepys
Kate Loveman: Publishing Pepys
literaryreview.co.uk
Arthur Christopher Benson was a pillar of the Edwardian establishment. He was supremely well connected. As his newly published diaries reveal, he was also riotously indiscreet.
Piers Brendon compares Benson’s journals to others from the 20th century.
Piers Brendon - Land of Dopes & Tories
Piers Brendon: Land of Dopes & Tories - The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson by Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd)
literaryreview.co.uk
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk