Laura Waddell's Blog
November 28, 2020
Exit Reviewed in Review 31
Today I'm grateful to Review 31 and Alexandra Marraccini for this review of Exit, which is the most in-depth review my writing has yet received.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/73...
"The beginning of Exit takes the reader by surprise with its poignancy. Expecting a clear-eyed history of signage (which Waddell saves this for later), one is instead faced with the problem of transience and migration, forced and otherwise. She asks, thinking of photographs of pack ships, trains, and border crossing lines full of people: ‘How often do we look need right in the eye?’
[...]
The final section of Exit is dazzling, and unusual for the Object Lessons series on the whole. It reads almost as if Object Oriented Ontology were a lyrical prose poem. Entitled ‘Existential Exits’ and written entirely in the second person it contains paragraphs in which ‘You are ground corn juddering down a conveyor belt. . .’; ‘You are Henry I of England and you have eaten too many lampreys’; and ‘You are many apples falling from an orchard’s worth of trees. Plop, plop, plop, plop. . .’ It ends with a paragraph in which the reader is a newborn child coming into the world, linking exits with entrances thematically as Waddell has all along. This is a bravura turn and an unexpected ending to a nominally explanatory book."
Exit
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/73...
"The beginning of Exit takes the reader by surprise with its poignancy. Expecting a clear-eyed history of signage (which Waddell saves this for later), one is instead faced with the problem of transience and migration, forced and otherwise. She asks, thinking of photographs of pack ships, trains, and border crossing lines full of people: ‘How often do we look need right in the eye?’
[...]
The final section of Exit is dazzling, and unusual for the Object Lessons series on the whole. It reads almost as if Object Oriented Ontology were a lyrical prose poem. Entitled ‘Existential Exits’ and written entirely in the second person it contains paragraphs in which ‘You are ground corn juddering down a conveyor belt. . .’; ‘You are Henry I of England and you have eaten too many lampreys’; and ‘You are many apples falling from an orchard’s worth of trees. Plop, plop, plop, plop. . .’ It ends with a paragraph in which the reader is a newborn child coming into the world, linking exits with entrances thematically as Waddell has all along. This is a bravura turn and an unexpected ending to a nominally explanatory book."
Exit
April 18, 2020
Exit
My first book, Exit, is out on 3rd September 2020. I don't know what the world will look like then: my first events, at festivals, have been cancelled. But as it goes to print in a few weeks, I'm looking forward to holding it in my hands.
Exit contemplates the exits that are all around us. The ways in and out; the difference between here and there. The exits we take every day from buildings and transport. The moments when we cross over from one side to the other. Writing this book took me into unexpected places.
I originally set out to find out why I was so intrigued by exit signs, and looked into their design to find a fascinating history of worker's rights and communicating across language barriers.
I was drawn into wondering whether all exits are equal. I look at exits in migration, evacuation, eviction, and what is left behind when cultures are forced to exit.
And let's not forget the surprising number of songs about exits in Sesame Street. Everyone out of the exit door, the exit door, the exit door. I look at the art and literature curious about the dividing line between entering and exiting.
I hope that it will take you on your own journey into the exitscape.
Exit is available for pre-order wherever you buy books.
Exit
Exit contemplates the exits that are all around us. The ways in and out; the difference between here and there. The exits we take every day from buildings and transport. The moments when we cross over from one side to the other. Writing this book took me into unexpected places.
I originally set out to find out why I was so intrigued by exit signs, and looked into their design to find a fascinating history of worker's rights and communicating across language barriers.
I was drawn into wondering whether all exits are equal. I look at exits in migration, evacuation, eviction, and what is left behind when cultures are forced to exit.
And let's not forget the surprising number of songs about exits in Sesame Street. Everyone out of the exit door, the exit door, the exit door. I look at the art and literature curious about the dividing line between entering and exiting.
I hope that it will take you on your own journey into the exitscape.
Exit is available for pre-order wherever you buy books.
Exit
April 7, 2017
Is a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale coming?
I wrote about the relevance of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood to the present day and whether it's time for a sequel in the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...
