Lizzy Stewart

'Subtle and deliciously complicated, this is a big book on big subjects, but lightly, elegantly done. I loved it' Tessa Hadley Alison is newly married, barely twenty and struggling to find her place in the world. A chance encounter with an older artist upturns her life and she forsakes convention and her working-class Dorset roots for the thrumming art scene of London in the late seventies. As the thrill of bohemian romance leads inevitably to disappointment, Alison begins to find her own path - through art, friendship and love. 'This book is a testament to the right to choose your own life' Jessica Andrews

Alison

Jawahir M

Patrick Kerr wanted a woman who did not exist...He wanted a woman who would never need anything from him, yet also who could be utterly reliant on him. He wanted to mould someone in his own image, but for that image to also remain the perfect image of femininity.

To have done something alone was confirmation of my own personhood and in it I found joy.

I had lost myself over and over. And now it was time to start again.

It was as though we knew that the world wasn’t really designed for us, and the knowing allowed us to turn it into whatever we wanted.

Now, though, I wonder what it meant for him to look at me as a shape, a subject, and then sleep with me, in the very same room

Beatrix

I found being near him - watching him draw, the way he mumbled to himself, the sounds he made whilst he slept against me on the sofa - was the most intoxicating thing I’d ever experienced. He was loveliness embodied, lovely in his bones.

The rattling in my head began to fade. It would return, of course, from time to time throughout my life, but I grew better at recognising it for what it was: a need to stop and admire the view.

At home all I had in me was sleep. Bundled up in my bed, Id focus on every sensation in my fuzzy, rattling body.

.. I think that what I was feeling was a loneliness, and loneliness became anxiety, and that became exhaustion.

wine and sweets, fish and chips in the floor of Tessa’s studio, screeching with laughter on the bus after a po-faced gallery opening.

Our best times were those when we seesawed between childhood and adulthood;

l had always worried – all my life, perhaps- that I had no personality. I felt that I had missed some key stage in development where one accrues the necessary information to be charming or passionate or interesting in public. Dropped, as I was, into a world where everyone was filled with what seemed like such richness of experience, such expression, I felt like blank space.

I think we were happy. We were certainly ordinary, which made us assume that we must be happy. Whether we felt it or not.

"I had lost myself over and over. And now it was time to start again."

This is the type of book I imagine Vivienne Westwood would keep on her bookshelf. 

A story of being lost and found, a woman's determination to protect her own corner and pave her own path, of being desired and being loved. Alison's story is enigmatic, beautiful, and real. 

I was kind of surprised when I saw that the illustrations were majorly grey-scale unlike the colorful cover. But I still love this book. I love the writing and the mixture of comic art, scrapbook art, and watercolor. 

I'll be thinking about Alison for quite some time...

"I had lost myself over and over. And now it was time to start again."

This is the type of book I imagine Vivienne Westwood would keep on her bookshelf. 

A story of being lost and found, a woman's determination to protect her own corner and pave her own path, of being desired and being loved. Alison's story is enigmatic, beautiful, and real. 

I was kind of surprised when I saw that the illustrations were majorly grey-scale unlike the colorful cover. But I still love this book. I love the writing and the mixture of comic art, scrapbook art, and watercolor. 

I'll be thinking about Alison for quite some time...

" Aged twenty-four, I had been married and divorced. I had had a love affair with a giant of his field'. I had lost myself over and over and over. And now it was time to start again. “

This marvellous book. This gorgeous book. Wow.

I was over the moon to win #Alison and a watercolour @artfulbox from @serpentstail and set down to read it immediately. I didn't put it down. I couldn't put it down.

The story focuses on a young woman Alison as she leaves her old life behind to start a new one. She's exploring art and finding her voice and losing her footing along the way. It's a story of love and loss, friendship, creativity, finding yourself and more. I was enraptured by the beautiful art and the beautiful story that so resonated with where I am in my life. I'm on my own creative journey and exploration so it spoke to me in so many ways.

Imie Kent-Muller

" Aged twenty-four, I had been married and divorced. I had had a love affair with a giant of his field'. I had lost myself over and over and over. And now it was time to start again. “

This marvellous book. This gorgeous book. Wow.

I was over the moon to win #Alison and a watercolour @artfulbox from @serpentstail and set down to read it immediately. I didn't put it down. I couldn't put it down.

The story focuses on a young woman Alison as she leaves her old life behind to start a new one. She's exploring art and finding her voice and losing her footing along the way. It's a story of love and loss, friendship, creativity, finding yourself and more. I was enraptured by the beautiful art and the beautiful story that so resonated with where I am in my life. I'm on my own creative journey and exploration so it spoke to me in so many ways.

Alison

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