Overview

'Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. The Stirrings is a pleasure and a shock' Eimear McBride 'A superb, moving and disturbing memoir - haunting and unforgettable' Jonathan Coe This is a story about one young woman coming of age, and about the place and time that shaped her: the North of England in the 1970s and 80s. About the scorching summer of 1976 - the last Catherine Taylor would spend with both her parents in their home in Sheffield. About the Yorkshire Ripper, the serial killer whose haunting presence in Catherine's childhood was matched only by the aching absence of her own father. About a country thrown into disarray by the nuclear threat and the Miners' Strike, just as Catherine's adolescent body was invaded by a debilitating illness. About 1989's 'Second Summer of Love', a time of sexual awakening for Catherine, and the unforeseen consequences that followed it. About a tragic accident, and how the insidious dangers facing women would became increasingly apparent as Catherine crossed into to adulthood.

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9781474625319

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Reviews

"Captures the fear and euphoria of growing up with precision and wry, spiky flair -- Susie Boyt Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. THE STIRRINGS is a pleasure and a shock -- Eimear McBride From chlorine and Quavers to the Jesus and Mary Chain, an engaging personal and political 1980s awakening -- Richard Beard So stylishly done, and one of the finest memoirs I've read in years -- Sunjeev Sahota What a superb, moving and disturbing memoir Catherine Taylor has written. Tracing delicate threads of connection between the political and the personal, evoking the atmosphere of the 80s and early 1990s with uncanny precision. It's haunting and unforgettable. -- Jonathan Coe The Stirrings is an evocative and moving time-slip of a memoir. With ominous overtones, a defiant spirit, and a nostalgic slice of both the euphoria and dread that saturated the '70s and '80s, Taylor's coming of age tale gifts us the friend we all longed for growing up: one who is open, funny and better read -- Jade Angeles Fitton A frank and challenging mixture of memory and anger and protest, with a strong sense of place and history. It evokes a Sheffield I knew well in the process of evolving into the city it is now - the very place names are resonant with nostalgia -- Margaret Drabble A great and devastating memoir -- Laura Cumming Inspiring in its honesty, unforgettable in its blend of grit and vulnerability -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller * Catherine Taylor's memoir The Stirrings is a dark, wry tribute to the Steel City, and her encounters with many of its best-known inhabitants . . . Her findings are presented with both poetry and wit: The Stirrings is a vivid chronicle of a young woman's journey into adulthood, and an equally vivid portrait of a place and moment in time -- Holly Williams * Telegraph * A coming-of-age memoir which charts the author's experiences growing up in 1970s and 80s Sheffield, the evocation of time and place is so good you are almost surprised when you look up and see you are elsewhere * i news * Catherine Taylor's account of her youth is a lyrical study of how place shapes character ... Assured and perceptive . . . She brilliantly evokes the ""tiny traumas"" of childhood . . . Haunting . . . The reader may wish this memoir were longer * Observer * The 'addictive, druggy aroma' of Vosene shampoo is just one of the many memories triggered by Catherine Taylor's evocative and stirring memoir . . . The book neatly balances a personal story with an incisive social history of an era, told honestly through working-class eyes . . . An excellent memoir * Independent * A powerful memoir, strong on period detail and notable both for the dramatic events in the background (including the Yorkshire Ripper murders and Orgreave) and for the author's story of her childhood and family -- Blake Morrison Catherine Taylor's wonderful, evocative memoir is honest and unsentimental about the city of Sheffield she grew up in during the Seventies and Eighties but it's clear that, although she now lives in London, it still looms large in her life . . . [an] easily relatable, sympathetic and moving story. And while many of the landmarks of Catherine's Sheffield youth are now long gone the city's renewal in recent times seems to go hand in hand with her own personal journey * Choice * Taylor's memories are deliciously vibrant -- Pippa Bailey * New Statesman * The violence men do, to the world in general but women's bodies in particular, is the angry backdrop to this fine memoir. That and the city of Sheffield itself . . . While the prose is lyrical, the book offers a way of thinking about the personal past that will speak to anyone who has grown up trying to assemble a self from the bits and pieces of family and political culture randomly assigned at birth. In other words, all of us. -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * A haunting piece of memoir and cultural history * Buzz Magazine * Sparklingly evocative . . . Taylor illustrates the deep connection between person and place in the construction of identity: here the lines between city and citizen are satisfyingly blurred * Financial Times * I suspect the book will be catnip to readers of a nostalgic bent . . . Taylor skilfully captures the mood of those years, a 'Northern Time' caught miraculously in aspic * Mail on Sunday * As well as a personal story, The Stirrings is also an atmospheric social document . . . delicately written and deeply affecting * Irish Times * Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. The Stirrings is a pleasure and a shock' -- Eimear McBride"

"Captures the fear and euphoria of growing up with precision and wry, spiky flair -- Susie Boyt Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. THE STIRRINGS is a pleasure and a shock -- Eimear McBride From chlorine and Quavers to the Jesus and Mary Chain, an engaging personal and political 1980s awakening -- Richard Beard So stylishly done, and one of the finest memoirs I've read in years -- Sunjeev Sahota What a superb, moving and disturbing memoir Catherine Taylor has written. Tracing delicate threads of connection between the political and the personal, evoking the atmosphere of the 80s and early 1990s with uncanny precision. It's haunting and unforgettable. -- Jonathan Coe This marvellous book is a creature of itself. Memoir? Forget it. Here is prose operating at the level of a lethal instrument -- Kirsty Gunn * New Zealand Listener * The 'addictive, druggy aroma' of Vosene shampoo is just one of the many memories triggered by Catherine Taylor's evocative and stirring memoir . . . The book neatly balances a personal story with an incisive social history of an era, told honestly through working-class eyes . . . An excellent memoir * Independent * A frank and challenging mixture of memory and anger and protest, with a strong sense of place and history. It evokes a Sheffield I knew well in the process of evolving into the city it is now - the very place names are resonant with nostalgia -- Margaret Drabble Sparklingly evocative . . . Taylor illustrates the deep connection between person and place in the construction of identity: here the lines between city and citizen are satisfyingly blurred * Financial Times * As well as a personal story, The Stirrings is also an atmospheric social document . . . delicately written and deeply affecting * Irish Times * A great and devastating memoir -- Laura Cumming Taylor's memories are deliciously vibrant -- Pippa Bailey * New Statesman * Inspiring in its honesty, unforgettable in its blend of grit and vulnerability -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller * Catherine Taylor's memoir The Stirrings is a dark, wry tribute to the Steel City, and her encounters with many of its best-known inhabitants . . . Her findings are presented with both poetry and wit: The Stirrings is a vivid chronicle of a young woman's journey into adulthood, and an equally vivid portrait of a place and moment in time -- Holly Williams * Telegraph * A coming-of-age memoir which charts the author's experiences growing up in 1970s and 80s Sheffield, the evocation of time and place is so good you are almost surprised when you look up and see you are elsewhere * i news * Catherine Taylor's account of her youth is a lyrical study of how place shapes character ... Assured and perceptive . . . She brilliantly evokes the ""tiny traumas"" of childhood . . . Haunting . . . The reader may wish this memoir were longer * Observer * A powerful memoir, strong on period detail and notable both for the dramatic events in the background (including the Yorkshire Ripper murders and Orgreave) and for the author's story of her childhood and family -- Blake Morrison The Stirrings is an evocative and moving time-slip of a memoir. With ominous overtones, a defiant spirit, and a nostalgic slice of both the euphoria and dread that saturated the '70s and '80s, Taylor's coming of age tale gifts us the friend we all longed for growing up: one who is open, funny and better read -- Jade Angeles Fitton Catherine Taylor's wonderful, evocative memoir is honest and unsentimental about the city of Sheffield she grew up in during the Seventies and Eighties but it's clear that, although she now lives in London, it still looms large in her life . . . [an] easily relatable, sympathetic and moving story. And while many of the landmarks of Catherine's Sheffield youth are now long gone the city's renewal in recent times seems to go hand in hand with her own personal journey * Choice * The violence men do, to the world in general but women's bodies in particular, is the angry backdrop to this fine memoir. That and the city of Sheffield itself . . . While the prose is lyrical, the book offers a way of thinking about the personal past that will speak to anyone who has grown up trying to assemble a self from the bits and pieces of family and political culture randomly assigned at birth. In other words, all of us. -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * A haunting piece of memoir and cultural history * Buzz Magazine * I suspect the book will be catnip to readers of a nostalgic bent . . . Taylor skilfully captures the mood of those years, a 'Northern Time' caught miraculously in aspic * Mail on Sunday *"

Author Information

Catherine Taylor was born in Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand, and grew up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Formerly publisher at The Folio Society and deputy director of English PEN, she is now a freelance writer, critic, and editor. Her essays have appeared in Granta, Aeon, and the collection Trauma: Art and Mental Health (Dodo Ink, 2021). She edited The Book of Sheffield: A City in Short Fiction (Comma Press, 2019), chosen as the 2020 Big City Read by Sheffield Libraries. She lives in London. This is her first book.

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