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