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Pandora's Handbag : Adventures in the Book World
Born into a Calvinist Scottish family, Elizabeth Young?s life was turned upside down when she was given, at the age of 11, three American books: Algren's The Man with the Golden Arm, Ginsberg's Howl and Kerouac's On the Road. An exceptionally ghoulish child, obsessed with graveyards, owls, wolves and horror stories, she very early on decided to devote her life to books, reading and writing. Elizabeth Young's collected writings exhibit her singular attraction to the bizarre and her dedication to the high standards of a critic. Witty, incisive, wide-ranging and also moving, Pandora's Handbag chronicles the journey of a modern arts critic and Young?s personal journey from childhood to critic. Each previously published article is presented in its entirety, with original titles and additional notes. This collection includes two of Young's crusading articles (on drug legislation and the Hepatitus C virus), which have become seminal texts.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
72 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Young
5 books3 followersLibrarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Elizabeth Jesse Young was a London-based literary critic and author, who wrote principally on cult writers for a range of British newspapers and magazines. In particular she championed transgressive fiction, for which she received some criticism in the press, not least for her defence of A. M. Homes' The End of Alice, which dealt with themes of paedophilia from what was seen as an uncomfortably neutral perspective.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Young received a Calvinist education in her parents' native Scotland, before discovering at the age of 11 the works of Nelson Algren, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The enduring fascination with the Beats was to stay with her. Before becoming a literary critic she worked in Compendium Books in Camden Town and was noted for her Goth appearance. In addition to literary criticism, Young's attraction to the counterculture saw her pen articles on drugs, music and pornography. She also appeared as Ray Gange's girlfriend in Rude Boy, the 1980 film about a roadie for The Clash.
Young acted as a champion for the US cult scene, with authors such as Bret Easton Ellis, Dennis Cooper and A. M. Homes receiving regular praise in her reviews. She also promoted the early talents of Poppy Z. Brite. In 1992, she and Graham Cavaney published Shopping in Space: Essays on American 'Blank Generation' Fiction (Serpent's Tail), which dealt extensively with the US literary underground, from Joel Rose to grindhouse movies. In terms of UK writers, she acted as an enthusiastic supporter of the talents of Stewart Home, Alasdair Gray, Alan Warner and Irvine Welsh.
In 2001, Young died from Hepatitis C. Later that year, a selection of her reviews and articles were collated in a volume published by Serpent's Tail, Pandora's Handbag, for which friend Will Self penned the introduction.
Elizabeth Jesse Young was a London-based literary critic and author, who wrote principally on cult writers for a range of British newspapers and magazines. In particular she championed transgressive fiction, for which she received some criticism in the press, not least for her defence of A. M. Homes' The End of Alice, which dealt with themes of paedophilia from what was seen as an uncomfortably neutral perspective.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Young received a Calvinist education in her parents' native Scotland, before discovering at the age of 11 the works of Nelson Algren, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The enduring fascination with the Beats was to stay with her. Before becoming a literary critic she worked in Compendium Books in Camden Town and was noted for her Goth appearance. In addition to literary criticism, Young's attraction to the counterculture saw her pen articles on drugs, music and pornography. She also appeared as Ray Gange's girlfriend in Rude Boy, the 1980 film about a roadie for The Clash.
Young acted as a champion for the US cult scene, with authors such as Bret Easton Ellis, Dennis Cooper and A. M. Homes receiving regular praise in her reviews. She also promoted the early talents of Poppy Z. Brite. In 1992, she and Graham Cavaney published Shopping in Space: Essays on American 'Blank Generation' Fiction (Serpent's Tail), which dealt extensively with the US literary underground, from Joel Rose to grindhouse movies. In terms of UK writers, she acted as an enthusiastic supporter of the talents of Stewart Home, Alasdair Gray, Alan Warner and Irvine Welsh.
In 2001, Young died from Hepatitis C. Later that year, a selection of her reviews and articles were collated in a volume published by Serpent's Tail, Pandora's Handbag, for which friend Will Self penned the introduction.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 25, 2024
John Carey was right when he said reviewers should ideally preface a collection of their work with a capsule biography, letting you know in advance how much to take at face value and how much to junk.
Young isn’t in Carey's league but she shares many of his virtues: never being afraid of criticising a favourite author when their new work isn’t up to scratch; honesty; and, once hitting on a favourite subject, making you want to listen for hours.
Though she covers a moderately sized beat - drugs, shopping, punk rock, feminism, censorship and fiction - Young's essays about writers are the best things in the collection. Alice Munro has, no like other writer, 'traced with such terrifying accuracy the way in which these emotions and impulses work within us. And indeed how their ripples, like ink in milk, stain our sexual lives, our friendships and relationships.' Her great virtue, however, was taking any life, 'however humble, narrow and provincial, is potentially of interest to her.'
Until reading this book, I was convinced I was the only reader in Britain who’d loved the short fiction of Georgina Hammick and Shena McKay. Young was one of the first critics to champion a young Scottish scribbler named Irvine Welsh, and his contemporary Alan Warner - though, oddly, not Janice Galloway, Jeff Torrington or A.L. Kennedy. Though modest about her efforts, referring to her life's work in reviewing as 'bubble wrap', Young captures the incidental pleasures of the book-lover, and not only be-the-first-on-your-street kind.
The problem, alas, is the good stuff isn’t in equal proportion to the bad stuff. There is an entire section devoted to short monographs - laboured on but unpublished - all of which disappoint. The one devoted to Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels, which should have been a barn-stormer, is as flat as the Fens. It’s little more than a potted history of the (then) three books in the sequence, not in chronological order, and with minimal critical oversight.
Although an omnivorous reader, Young seems to think sixth-form shockers like Bret Easton Ellis, Dennis Cooper and Poppy Z. Brite are the hard stuff of literature; and that anything without a surplus of paedophilia, porn, hard drugs, sadism etc. should be automatically ruled out. ('Middle class', 'dull', 'tepid’ are all used too often and too often used interchangeably.)
Young’s habitual snobbery is another obstacle - a hangover, perhaps, from her days spent in the kind of school where balancing books on one's head counted as a taught subject. The same goes for her quaint assumption that any writer who has a London postcode should automatically outrank a writer that doesn’t. For a reviewer that champions Scottish writing, Young is insufferably patronising about life outside the capital.
Enthusiasm can also lead to sloppiness. 'Fanatic' isn't the word you use when you mean to say 'fanatical'. Excessive capitals and single-line paragraphs are for amateurs. There are too many missing full stops and commas, all of which should have been spotted at the proofing stage. 'British Writing in the 1990s' is a series of flat assertions rather than competent criticism. Most readers, I suspect, could live without sentences as stiff as these:
'He is the animus at the centre of all things, both the mechanistic and the numinous, a metaphor for the shamanistic animism that can creatively illuminate a prosaic reality.'
'I believed she was deliberately resuscitating the 1890s and comparing its maddened millenarianism to the extreme behaviour characteristic of the end of this century.'
I have filled an entire shelf with writers' collected reviews. I still have my yellowing, much-thumbed copies of Picked Up Pieces, Junk Mail, Original Copy, and Homage to QWERTYUIOP. For all its many, easily avoidable flaws, this volume - the only full length work Young published before she died - has stayed beside them. I think it'll be there a few years yet.
Young isn’t in Carey's league but she shares many of his virtues: never being afraid of criticising a favourite author when their new work isn’t up to scratch; honesty; and, once hitting on a favourite subject, making you want to listen for hours.
Though she covers a moderately sized beat - drugs, shopping, punk rock, feminism, censorship and fiction - Young's essays about writers are the best things in the collection. Alice Munro has, no like other writer, 'traced with such terrifying accuracy the way in which these emotions and impulses work within us. And indeed how their ripples, like ink in milk, stain our sexual lives, our friendships and relationships.' Her great virtue, however, was taking any life, 'however humble, narrow and provincial, is potentially of interest to her.'
Until reading this book, I was convinced I was the only reader in Britain who’d loved the short fiction of Georgina Hammick and Shena McKay. Young was one of the first critics to champion a young Scottish scribbler named Irvine Welsh, and his contemporary Alan Warner - though, oddly, not Janice Galloway, Jeff Torrington or A.L. Kennedy. Though modest about her efforts, referring to her life's work in reviewing as 'bubble wrap', Young captures the incidental pleasures of the book-lover, and not only be-the-first-on-your-street kind.
The problem, alas, is the good stuff isn’t in equal proportion to the bad stuff. There is an entire section devoted to short monographs - laboured on but unpublished - all of which disappoint. The one devoted to Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels, which should have been a barn-stormer, is as flat as the Fens. It’s little more than a potted history of the (then) three books in the sequence, not in chronological order, and with minimal critical oversight.
Although an omnivorous reader, Young seems to think sixth-form shockers like Bret Easton Ellis, Dennis Cooper and Poppy Z. Brite are the hard stuff of literature; and that anything without a surplus of paedophilia, porn, hard drugs, sadism etc. should be automatically ruled out. ('Middle class', 'dull', 'tepid’ are all used too often and too often used interchangeably.)
Young’s habitual snobbery is another obstacle - a hangover, perhaps, from her days spent in the kind of school where balancing books on one's head counted as a taught subject. The same goes for her quaint assumption that any writer who has a London postcode should automatically outrank a writer that doesn’t. For a reviewer that champions Scottish writing, Young is insufferably patronising about life outside the capital.
Enthusiasm can also lead to sloppiness. 'Fanatic' isn't the word you use when you mean to say 'fanatical'. Excessive capitals and single-line paragraphs are for amateurs. There are too many missing full stops and commas, all of which should have been spotted at the proofing stage. 'British Writing in the 1990s' is a series of flat assertions rather than competent criticism. Most readers, I suspect, could live without sentences as stiff as these:
'He is the animus at the centre of all things, both the mechanistic and the numinous, a metaphor for the shamanistic animism that can creatively illuminate a prosaic reality.'
'I believed she was deliberately resuscitating the 1890s and comparing its maddened millenarianism to the extreme behaviour characteristic of the end of this century.'
I have filled an entire shelf with writers' collected reviews. I still have my yellowing, much-thumbed copies of Picked Up Pieces, Junk Mail, Original Copy, and Homage to QWERTYUIOP. For all its many, easily avoidable flaws, this volume - the only full length work Young published before she died - has stayed beside them. I think it'll be there a few years yet.
December 28, 2011
The deaths of writers Robin Cook, Kathy Acker and Laurence James were all deeply upsetting for me, and made my shock at the passing of Elizabeth Young in March [2001] all the more traumatic. Liz read compulsively and when a new book came out by someone we both admired — say Bridget Penney or Darius James — we’d spend hours discussing it. Not that Liz restricted her interests to books: alongside well thumbed tomes her Ladbroke Grove flat was filled with some of the most unbelievable kitsch I’ve ever encountered — brightly coloured cushions, garish clothes and novelty knickknacks.
You can read the whole of my Liz Young tribute/obituary here: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerp...
You can read the whole of my Liz Young tribute/obituary here: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerp...
December 12, 2024
Definitely compelling reading for the most part! A poorly defined disgruntlement with 'political correctness' not withstanding, it seems Elizabeth Young was emminently readable, and I don't begrudge her too much for the opinions on which we differ.
Best article in the whole thing is definitely her examination of the development of punitive drug laws in the UK - it's radical, empathetic and furious in the best ways and I would encourage anyone not convinced by decriminalisation to give it a read. The article about the cat is a close second though.
Best article in the whole thing is definitely her examination of the development of punitive drug laws in the UK - it's radical, empathetic and furious in the best ways and I would encourage anyone not convinced by decriminalisation to give it a read. The article about the cat is a close second though.
July 21, 2025
wonderful, enjoyed every page of it
November 30, 2014
Pandora's Handbag: Adventures in the Book World by Elizabeth Young
Young wrote two kinds of articles, reviews and social commentary. In the former category are the reviews collected here of Hunter S Thompson, Herbert Huncke, William Burroughs, Brett Easton Ellis, Alice Munro, Greil Marcus, Alice Hoffman, Dennis Cooper, TC Boyle, David Callard, Poppy Z Brite, James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, Terry Prachett, Christopher Wood, Iain Sinclair, Jonathan Meades, Will Self, Michael Bracewell and Robert Harris. Her reviews are incisive and learned both in literary and cultural terms, for instance in her writing on the Celtic renaissance of the 90s which included Warner and Welsh she sees clearly the anti establishment ethos of writers disenchanted with the misrepresentation of Scotland as all about tartan, shortbread and beautiful landscape searching for a way to speak of their world of desperately low expectations, drugs, of isolation from society and of their own culture.
Her other articles take these themes on in a more direct fashion, challenging and lambasting the current 'war on drugs' government and society attitude to illegal drugs that replaced the 'British system' of prescribing to addicts and has resulted in massive gang warfare, illegal trafficking, and death and maiming from the adulterated drugs themselves and supposed solutions such as methadone. She speaks from within the affected society and the urgency of her calls for change are informed by this.
But Young is also funny and witty, this is a good collection that made me think. And I have found two other people that are sure they are a gay man trapped in a woman's body, I thought I was just nuts...
Young wrote two kinds of articles, reviews and social commentary. In the former category are the reviews collected here of Hunter S Thompson, Herbert Huncke, William Burroughs, Brett Easton Ellis, Alice Munro, Greil Marcus, Alice Hoffman, Dennis Cooper, TC Boyle, David Callard, Poppy Z Brite, James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, Terry Prachett, Christopher Wood, Iain Sinclair, Jonathan Meades, Will Self, Michael Bracewell and Robert Harris. Her reviews are incisive and learned both in literary and cultural terms, for instance in her writing on the Celtic renaissance of the 90s which included Warner and Welsh she sees clearly the anti establishment ethos of writers disenchanted with the misrepresentation of Scotland as all about tartan, shortbread and beautiful landscape searching for a way to speak of their world of desperately low expectations, drugs, of isolation from society and of their own culture.
Her other articles take these themes on in a more direct fashion, challenging and lambasting the current 'war on drugs' government and society attitude to illegal drugs that replaced the 'British system' of prescribing to addicts and has resulted in massive gang warfare, illegal trafficking, and death and maiming from the adulterated drugs themselves and supposed solutions such as methadone. She speaks from within the affected society and the urgency of her calls for change are informed by this.
But Young is also funny and witty, this is a good collection that made me think. And I have found two other people that are sure they are a gay man trapped in a woman's body, I thought I was just nuts...
June 22, 2013
Elizabeth Young died in 2001 and this is her final collection of her best work as a book reviewer and feature journalist. Her main non-literary interests are feminism and drug use, two topics that also feature a great deal in her favourite writing, a lot of which was from American post-war fiction. Although I don't agree with all her appraisals she does write well and with enthusiasm, and there is much good stuff in here, for example her early support for Will Self and Irvine Welsh. It's criminal that copies of this are currently available for £0.01 on Amazon, and so I am starting a campaign to make sure as many people as possible hear about this book. Please spread the word.
July 31, 2013
Decent collection of essays by a literary critic who championed and supported edgy, underground and alternative literature. She was an early champion of the likes of Iain Sinclair, Irvine Welsh, Dennis Cooper and Bret Easton Ellis amongst others. I agree with Annie, who said in her review that an essay in this collection made her paranoid about Hepatitis C. That essay gave me goose pimples. This book also reminded me what a tragedy it is that Compendium Books in Camden closed down, and that London is incapable of supporting a bookshop like that today.
August 12, 2007
i became very paranoid about Hepatitis because of this book. (also, it contains a lot of fantastic book reviews)
April 30, 2008
I totally love this woman. Hot, smart, and a little bit of a pevert. So sad that she passed away.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews