Little Scratch

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I have to stop myself, I know I will stop myself so my body scratches faster, gets in more moves in less time, if you’re going to make me tear away so soon I better get my pound’s An image! not my spoon! not my phone! (although I can see that too, an emoji of a pig, which distracts me for a second but oh no I am not letting this go, yes an image, a book This debut novel - now included in the influential annual Observer first novelist article - will I think be one of the most innovative I read in 2021 – and I would be not be surprised to see it featuring on Prize lists including the Goldsmith. The Goldsmith was of course won in its first year by Eimear McBride’s harrowing stream-of-consciousness novel “A Girl is a Half Formed Thing” which is the only time ever I have listened to an audiobook as a way of gaining entry to a book I had found it difficult to access in print (just for reference in a typical year I read around 150 novels and listen to 0 audiobooks) – allowing me then to read the novel. I get “you” instead of “her” the most. I am asked: “What was it like to put yourself out there?” I don’t know whether that’s loaded, misdirected or simply a question about being a writer in a world that values the public figure. Some exclaim about the honesty of writing “your thoughts”. I’m told I’m “brave”. And yes I am, thank you, but not because I wrote about a character’s fictional trauma.

I read Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan over Christmas. It’s really moving. The way he captures the romance of friendship is quite a rare thing. It’s also a beautiful celebration of spontaneous life, which feels really brutal to read during a pandemic. The ordinary kindness of a distant colleague bringing a cup of tea to the protagonist’s desk when she can tell the other woman is tense, and the protagonist’s thought that, if she (a woman whose name she doesn’t even remember) can notice the change, how is it possible that her own rapist cannot see or be moved by what he has done? That ruined me. Words are sent rippling up and down the line of actors, overlapping, chiming or bringing chilled silence.' The story originally started life as a prize shortlisted short story – and that story forms the midpoint of the day and is reproduced in full in the novel and gives a good sense of the book – much better than I think I have or can manage or that the formatting on Goodreads easily allows.l ittle scratch’ is a virtuoso articulation of a remarkable piece of writing.' 'little scratch' review This is not just a clear-eyed examination of the outrage of rape and its corrosive aftermath; it is an experiential testament to what it is to move through the male-dominated world as a woman. It’s extraordinary – and indispensable.' yes yes the silence the silence the slowing down the switching into whatsapp to explain consent to men who I thought would get it, at least them, How! How are they not with me here! and keeping strength, keeping expressions fixed, that do not imply anything, imply always nothing because it’s the stillness again, the carefully selected stillness hurts to bend my legs a bit, can feel behind my knees skin relenting, too stiff to wrap around the bone quite right, tearing, paper not made to flex this way Rebecca Watson is one of The Observer’s 10 best debut novelists of 2021 and was shortlisted for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize.

Overall I thought this was an excellent and impactful book treating an important if difficult subject –#MeToo and sexual assault in the workplace and female agency in the face of male obliviousness. Scratching as a bodily reaction to her environment, and a not very healthy relationship with food, are signals that far from all is well, and her assistant job at a newspaper features and abusive boss. However far from gloomy or heavy, Rebecca Watson brings a lot of humor in the book. The audiobook read by her is very well done, you feel the mood of the narrator shift and change and can really feel a part of her rambling, ever active mind.Left to right: Eve Ponsonby, Eleanor Henderson, Morónkẹ́ Akinọlá and Ragevan Asan in Watson’s little scratch at the Hampstead theatre, March 2021. Photograph: Robert Day Besides hilarious passages right from ordinary live we also get to see how whatsapp forms the main platform for the main character to fret over her relationship with her Him. little scratch made made me work hard, and I'm not sure it has a 'payoff' in a traditional novelistic sense. The language is spiky and fragmentary and the storytelling style approaches its subject--a woman trying to cope with the trauma of sexual abuse--in a manner that mirrors that shattering dislocation. The text (as my opening and closing quotes show) brings in ideas of linearity in thought and conventionality in writing (for example when the narrator finds some notes discarded by a colleague in the women’s toilet bin). Among the administrative tasks, cost centre codes and cups of tea are conscious constants: the memory of her rape, the urge to self-harm, and the comfort of – and desire for – her boyfriend, “my him”. She rehearses telling him about her trauma but fears it would engulf their relationship. Her creativity, too, has been silenced as she cannot continue writing her novel, bringing underlying sadness to the bursts of witty wordplay in her thoughts.