The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time, Catherine Taylor

December 2023

Atmospheric memoir of growing up in 1970s Sheffield with the grim backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper. Catherine Taylor survived various house moves, her parent’s divorce and the general disregard for young women and their lives before escaping to university where tragedy awaits.

Taylor is a beautiful writer. Gentle poetry mounts to cruel crescendo over and over as the trials of being a teenager repeat on her. We also have the pleasure of hearing how she discovers reading, through her mother’s bookshop, and music, and love.

She is around a decade older than I am and grew up on the other side of the hills, but I take any opportunity I can to imagine those peaks and The Stirrings takes me home, as fraught as that journey often is.

The paperback is out in April 2024, and for now the hardback is £16.14 (Orion)