Through the valley of shades
In the Dark Room, originally published in 2005, is a meditation on mourning and an excavation of memory. It was also Brian Dillon’s first book, and we might see it as the prelude to his subsequent essays on photography and hypochondria, artists and ruins, essayists and what he calls ‘essayism’. How, Dillon asks, does memory...
A fresh start
She had decided to make a fresh start. She had to make a fresh start. And as soon as she arrived at the small apartment-hotel, chosen at random and booked in Barcelona through a travel agent, she thought it was the ideal place to allow her to stop wondering “How do I go about it?”,...
No subject
It was only a couple of months ago. She was at the office settling in at her desk when she noticed ‘No Subject’ waiting in her email. It seemed strange for her aunt, a notorious perfectionist, to have left the subject line blank. She guessed it had something to do with her father, whose sixtieth birthday...
A mother ago
I entered the hospital filled with hatred and wanting to give thanks. How fragile is anger. We could shout, hit or spit at a stranger. The same person whom, depending on their verdict, depending on whether they tell us what we are desperate to hear, we would suddenly admire, embrace, swear loyalty to. And that...
