[Housekeeping - I’m going to add links for book recommendations. These are NOT affiliate links (yet). They just let me experiment with placements/formatting, etc. Let me know what you think of them.]

Have you ever wondered what stories inanimate objects could tell? What would the contents of your living room say if they could speak? On my Nani’s mantlepiece is a wind up chicken, the yellow plastic faded on one side from the sun, bare metal showing through the chipped orange paint on its feet. It’s just a nick nack, something to bring down to play with the Great Grandkids. But if it spoke, it would recount a thousand games with hundreds of children as my Grandad, a child psychologist, used it daily. Everyday stories, one-in-a-lifetime stories, true stories, made up stories, happy stories and harrowing stories.

Fiction Bite - A Wire Coat Hanger

She’d started life clean and shiny, heading out into the world like a sparkling gift. But life slowly beat that out of her, tarnishing and deforming her, until she was unremarkable. She clung on for years, serving her family through arguments, poverty and grief. Then the lover came, negliges appearing for hot, secret sex. More arguments, a blossoming, then two trembling hands prised her apart, bending her into a murderer. Her life hadn’t mattered, they’d just wanted to use her and discard her. She was disposable, after all.

Quote of the Week

“For me an object is something living. This cigarette or this box of matches contains a secret life much more intense than that of certain human beings.” — Joan Miro

Book Recommendation - Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (Amazon, Bookshop, Kobo, Wordery)

What happens if you take a bunch of writers and lock them in an abandoned theatre of three months? Haunted gives you an answer. It’s a novel of short stories, each ‘writer’ given the stage to share one of their creations, to dramatise their deepest secrets. Inbetween, we read of the dark, disgusting and desperate acts they get up to as they realise this won’t end well. Disturbing, graphic and gripping, I found it hard to resist reading the next character’s story and flew through the book.

Something to Try

If we were in non-covid times, I’d suggest that next time you were in someone's house, ask them a story about a curio that decorates their living room, or the strange ceramic cat on their kitchen windowsill. Given our lack of mingling, this is harder to do. Instead, can you remember strange objects of your parents, or from your childhood? Maybe the one falling apart Christmas decoration that nevertheless came out every year. Or the trophy gathering dust on the top shelf. Ring someone up, ask them about it, see if you can tease out a story, there’s always a story.

Final Words

I’m a sucker for old tools, I’m the mug that would walk around car boot sales and load up with rusty bits of metal that could be useful with a bit of loving. Only, I rarely get round to fixing them up. What pulls me in is the thought of a dozen hands grasping the same worn wooden handle, carving generations of trees or hammering a century of nails. Would a new tool work better? Probably, but it doesn't have the same feel, it doesn’t speak to me.

With Love

Joe

P.S. What did you think of this week’s email? Which was your favourite bit? Hit reply and let me know.