I loved this interview with the brilliant @stuhennigan.bsky.social about my memoir #homeiswherewestart. We chatted about my utopian commune childhood, social history, punk, Mark Fisher, post-revolutionary France, whether or not we consider ourselves as 'survivors' and more...
Recently I asked @bsky.app for help. I needed to see the V&A Marie-Antoinette exhibition for research for my new novel & it was sold out. Many kindly replied & brilliant @emilymfg.bsky.social (who'd read my memoir #homeiswherewestart Penguin) got me a visit with one of the curators. Mille mercis. 🙏
Wonderful to see my memoir #homeiswherewestart on best-selling list at the brilliant @booksellercrow.bsky.social bookshop in Crystal Palace. Thanks to these excellent booksellers 🙏💚💙💛.
'Home Is Where We Start' is Susanna Crossman's fascinating account of growing up feral in a commune during the 70s and 80s. Very erudite, and for me, very moving.
app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/80ad...
#memoir #communes #intentionalcommunities #80spunks #susannacrossman #homeiswherewestart
The word 'habitat' leads us to 'habit', and any home has a rhythm, and a domestic micro-culture with a language, rituals and jokes.
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
@susannacrossman.bsky.social
We are neighbours, best friends, enemies, cousins, family, brothers and sisters. We are none of these words and we are all of them and none of this is defined.
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
@susannacrossman.bsky.social
Under the roof, and in the thirty-one acres, we are now 'individuals', yet two distinct social groups are formed. One group is created by the other. Mum becomes one of the Adults, a powerhouse in dungarees. The other social group is the Kids.
#crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
H. G. Wells described utopias as shadows of light thrown by darkness. The light unfolds and refolds lives. Utopias tend to follow devastating periods, as they are an attempt to look forward and imagine a better world. #crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Thanks so much Joanna. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on #homeiswherewestart.
Friends, readers, please join us at brilliant
Backstory bookshop, Balham 30/10 7.30pm, for talk about my memoir #HomeIsWhereWeStart (Penguin), my 70/80's commune upbringing, rebelling against rebels, memoir writing, home & more. Come & say 'hi'.
Book here:
backstory.london/products/30t...
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart #SusannaCrossman #readinganactofsharedsolitude #paperpills💊 #beedoubleokayess📚🐦 #reemreel #athingofbeauty
www.instagram.com/reel/DBRE8i_...
We know we can't live in suburban houses; they are filled with Thatcherite monsters. Where do you go to from utopia?
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Despite his criticism of hope in The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus stated that it is (nearly) impossible to live without it; and that summer, hope feeds me. It is food in my body, vitamins for my soul.
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Children of utopian communities are exiled; we cannot ever go home from here.
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Diane Arbus's words: "There's a quality of legend about freaks...Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.'
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
In the box are paracetamol pills, and I count them because I need ten. This
is the number it takes to die. Natasha and I read it in a book. Every day I ask, 'Should I die, or stay alive?'
Self-harm replaces what words cannot say.
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
I keep two diaries - my own private diary, and the official trip diary for school. The latter must b ewritten daily and will be checked and handed into the teachers. They are two entirely different records, but I am used to compartmentalizing.
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
But I conclude the assessment by writing, 'Praying helps This is the dichotom praying helps.' Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, even though I have no memory of this ever happening is good. Gramm often write in my diary, 'I pray daily.'
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart
We know we can't live in suburban houses; they are filled with Thatcherite monsters. Where do you go to from utopia?
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Amazing evening at Lighthouse Bookshop in Edinburgh, talking about #homeiswherewestart (FigTree, Penguin)
with EwanMorrison. A lovely welcome & all thanks to the many attentive readers who attended the event online & in-person. Apparently you broke all records for the number of questions asked! 💚💙💛
Throughout our childhood, Claire was my witness, and I was hers.
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Someone nods a head in compassion, because one by one the Adults seem to agree it is difficult being around the Kids. Everybody knows the Kids are now difficult.
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Throughout my childhood I eat this bread, and as an adult, in our French kitchen, I relish it. Heavy wholemeal bread - detested by my partner and daughters is my Proustian madeleine.
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Italo Calvino wrote most things about you.' In our Kitchen, flies buzz over from the plates, but the sticky papers that our over from the ceiling have gone.
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Mao said the Chinese Revolution allowed the people to grasp the essence of the thing'. In any utopian experiment, inhabitants seek unprecedented authenticity, the space to be themselves.
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
Talk of solitude... It is the last resort of the civilized: our souls are so creased and soured in meaning we can only unfold them when we are alone.'
Virginia Woolf
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
#Crossman24 #HomeIsWhereWeStart #readinganactofsharedsolitude #paperpills💊 #beedoubleokayess📚🐦 #ReemReel #AThingOfBeauty
www.instagram.com/reel/DBJ1t05...
During siesta time, I think of what Jules Michelet says, that we must faire parler, make the silences of history speak.
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterwards the bruise.'
Walter de la Mare, The Return
#Crossman24 #HIWWS #HomeIsWhereWeStart
