Name: Juliana's review of Bleaker House by Nell Stevens
Item: Bleaker House
Rating: 3
Author: Juliana

Nell Stevens

On a frozen island in the Falklands, with only penguins for company, a young would-be writer struggles to craft a debut novel...and instead writes a funny, clever, moving memoir that heralds the arrival of a fresh new literary talent. Twenty-seven-year-old Nell Stevens was determined to write a novel, but somehow life kept getting in the way. Then came an irresistible opportunity: she won a fellowship to spend three months, all expenses paid, anywhere in the world to research and write a book. Did she choose a glittering metropolis, a romantic village, an exotic paradise? Um, no. Nell chose Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock off the Falklands. There, in a guesthouse where she would be the only guest, she imagined she could finally rid herself of distractions and write her 2,500 words a day. In three months, surely she'd have a novel, right? It's true that there aren't many distractions on Bleaker, other than sheep, penguins, paranoia and the weather. But as Nell gets to work on her novel--a delightful Dickensian fiction she calls Bleaker House--she discovers that an excruciatingly erratic Internet connection and 1100 calories a day (as much food as she could carry in her suitcase, budgeted to the raisin) are far from ideal conditions for literary production. With deft humour, this memoir traces Nell's island days and slowly reveals details of the life and people she has left behind in pursuit of her art. They pop up in her novel, as well, as memoir and novel start to reflect one another. It seems that there is nowhere Nell can run--neither a remote island nor the pages of her notebook--to escape herself. A whimsical, entertaining, thought-provoking blend of memoir and travelogue, laced with tongue-in-cheek writing advice, Bleaker House brilliantly captures the hopes, fears, self-torture and humour of being young and yearning to make a creative life. With winning honesty and wit, Nell's race to finish her book emerges as a fascinating narrative in its own right.

Chasing My Novel to the End of the World

Bleaker House

Juliana

azliana aziz

I don't know what compel me to read this book at the first place. Could be the cover or reading the synopsis that said a writer pushed herself in self isolation in order to write a book. Or probably the idea of isolation and loneliness really fascinates me.

I am not a regular reader of memoir or autobiographical books though I did read some over the years and what I appreciate from Bleaker House was, there's minimal amount of self insertion and when it is there, Stevens cleverly disguised it so as not to seems as self indulgent, making it as if it's not her story and to achieve that for your own memoir I thought that's great. I don't mean to say it was an impersonal one because there's so much of herself in this book but somehow it's very subtle.
I thought nearing the end it flounders a bit but overall this was such a pleasant and sobering read on the insight into what went on behind the scene of a great book. 

Stevens incisive, sometimes raw writing unnerves me and I am hoping that I could see her writing of some kind of bleak and atmospheric stories in the near future.

'Perfect' Lena Dunham'This year's literary sensation' Evening Standard8000 miles from home1085 calories a day3 months to write the novel that would make her nameAt least that was the plan. But when Nell Stevens travelled to Bleaker Island in the Falklands (official population: two) she didn't count on the isolation getting to her . . . Hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a book about loneliness and creativity. It is about discovering who you are when there's no one else around. And it's about what to do when a plan doesn't work: ultimately Nell may have failed to write a novel, but she succeeded in becoming a writer.

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Bleaker House by Nell Stevens

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