When her mother died Johanna Thomas-Corr, the literary editor of the Sunday Times, fretted that she was misremembering her somehow. “I kept reaching for my own figures of speech, only for them to writhe out of my hands,” she writes. “Writing about her was easy: she was so distinctive. But writing about my relationship with her – this was a slippery business.”
In this essay, struggling to find a language for her loss, Thomas-Corr turns to literature for answers. She draws on a rich tradition of writing about grief – from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief (2021), Ian McEwan’s novel Lessons (2022), to Deborah Levy’s The Cost of Living (2018).
Through their pages, she explores our inevitable entanglements with our mothers and grief in all its phases – the anticipatory, the humorous and the weird. “I have come to like images of myself, simply because they remind me of her,” she writes. “I used to be so self-conscious… but I rather like the fact I now look a bit like my mother did. I find I am not fighting it.”
Written by Johanna Thomas-Corr and read by Emma Haslett.
Related
This article was originally published in the 25 Jan 2023 issue of the New Statesman; you can read the text version here.
If you enjoyed this episode of the audio long read, you might enjoy listening to How does a music writer grieve? With playlists, of course.
Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer. Just visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer.
How to listen to Audio Long Reads
1. In podcast apps
Audio Long Reads is available to listen on all major podcast players, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, YouTube and more.
Content from our partners
Either click the links above to open in your preferred player, or open the podcast app on your device and search for “Audio Long Reads”.
Follow or subscribe in your podcast app to receive new episodes as soon as they publish.
2. On the New Statesman website
The podcast is also available to listen right here on the New Statesman website. Bookmark https://www.newstatesman.com/podcasts/audio-long-reads, where we will publish new episodes every Saturday morning.
3. On your smart speaker
If you have an Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple HomePod, ask it to “play the latest episode of Audio Long Reads from the New Statesman”.
The command will also work on other smart devices equipped with Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri.