Marianne Brooker and Intervals

"I wanted to be talking choice in a way that was routed in a social context, and that was true to the particularity and intimacy that I shared with my mum at the end of her life."

Marianne Brooker is here to talk about her Women's Prize for Non-Fiction shortlisted essay, INTERVALS, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Marianne talks about her life and living with her mother who was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. The book is a blend of memoir, philosophy, literary criticism, and politics. 

It's a tough but incredibly beautiful read. 

Rippling Points

2.05 - When Marianne decided this story about her mother was going to be a book

3.40 - 'Trying, circling, avoiding' - setting down to write a book like this

4.30 - How Marianne would categorises this book

7:00 -  On planning or not planning the book

8:44 - When Marianne's mother developed primary progressive multiple sclerosis

10:20 - Finding a voice and coming up with a 'vocabulary'

12:20 - The 'forces' in the book and Marianne's mother

16:10 - Marianne's relationship with her mother.

20:00 - What primary progressive multiple sclerosis is.

22:20 - Marianne on 'choice' 

25:21 - When Marianne found a video of her mother.

Reference Points

Writers

Roland Barthes
Annie Ernaux
Clarissa Pinkola Estés - Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype 
Saidiya Hartman
Alice Hattrick
Sophie Lewis
Sam Mills
Margery Williams - The Velveteen Rabbit

Filmmakers
Chantal Akerman