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Hello,
‘What’s to be done with the lost, the dead, but write them into being?’
So writes Hilary Mantel in her extraordinary memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. First published in 2003, it offers a snapshot of the great writer before the Wolf Hall era: a literary, if not commercial, success, and a fragile soul with a dark, scuttling imagination.
On Wednesday, I was joined by Jillian Hess of the brilliant Noted Substack to explore this wonderful book. We discussed the way that Mantel captures her childhood and family, her relationship to her body and the endometriosis that assailed it, the way she talks about writing, and - of course, given that it’s Halloween week - those ambiguous ghosts.
There’a reading guide here in case you missed it, and a transcript below. Click ‘CC’ to add captions to the recording.
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