Status Updates From Stet [vale lo tachado]

Her account of some of the writers she worked with makes me sad.
Clearly talented and interesting people! but like…— Jean Rhys is broke till her death
— Alfred Chester dies of madness
— V.S. Naipaul is prone to depression and only seems to find personal peace when he stops writing/being published

- not exactly a glowing advert for the writer’s life :(

“…but then I had no conception of how someone who feels he doesn’t belong to his “home” and cannot belong anywhere else is forced to exist only in himself; nor of how exhausting and precarious such a condition (blithely seen by the young and ignorant as desirable) can be.”

What an empathetic and insightful line on race, identity, sense of self and being a writer ❤️

Actually have a lot of respect for Diana’s handling of the Myra Hindley situation, “what would society gain…?”, By publishing her memoir where she exaggerates her youth and tries not to take ownership of her crime.
What do we gain from giving voice to anyone else like that on talk shows or stories shown on tv shows or through book deals?

“The country seemed to teem with people, most of them young women, so eager to work with books that they would endure poverty and pain to do so: a situation which we certainly exploited.”
💔💔💔

Immediately adding “Into that Darkness” by Gitta Sereny to my “want to read” list because of Diana’s description of her and her work ❤️

So Diane said what she earned a year in the 40s you know I nosely needed to know what that is now…
£380 a year = ~ £15,000
£500 a year = ~ £21,500

Yup and creative jobs in London would advertise those amounts today and then act dumb as to why only upper class people work in the industry!!

Oh I hope I don’t just feel pissy about the privileged class working in publishing when reading this :/