VOICE OF A GENERATION
Author rides wave of critical acclaim with followup of prose and poetry
Being a teenager is hard and being a young person is very confusing. We’re in a weird state, particularly with technology ... where Instagram and the world of online are places of perfection. Everyone is desperate to share how perfect they are, how perfect their lunches are, how expensive their clothes are.
Validate Me Charly Cox Harpercollins LONDON It was her debut book — a compelling collection of poetry and prose about navigating the transition from girlhood to womanhood in a digital world. And on the day that Charly Cox first held a published copy in her hands, she lost control of her emotions.
This child of the digital age was conscious that she was holding a real book — a tangible object with antecedents dating back to Gutenberg. Yet its contents had initially appeared through Instagram postings that attracted so much attention that publishers took notice. So now, seeing them in book form was “just the best, most pure experience” that could happen to her.
“I cried my eyes out for a week,” she says now. Well perhaps, she adds with a grin, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but Cox believes one has to be honest about the feelings — and forthright about the often wrenching personal journey (she is bipolar) — that led to publication and literary acclaim.
That 2018 book, She Must be Mad, saw its 22-year-old author rise high on the list of Britain’s top-selling poets. Its success also paved the way for a successor, the eagerly awaited Validate Me, which arrives in bookstores Nov. 5.
The London Sunday Times calls Cox social media’s answer to Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s poet laureate. Elle Magazine named her one of 2018’s power players. Award-winning English journalist Elizabeth Day says that Cox “gives voice to the things we think but never manage to say ... she makes us feel understood.” Yet there’s an irony in Cox’s success — the irony of a striking young creative talent caught between two worlds, the old and the new.
“When I was a child, my bedroom was filled with books,” she remembers. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer.”
And then comes an intriguing admission: “I don’t own a single ebook.” This from an author whose new volume, Validate Me, was written entirely on her phone.
Long before she was diagnosed as bipolar at the age of 17, she had been filling notebooks with her thoughts. Today she understands the therapeutic value of writing.
“I write from a very selfish place,” she tells Postmedia. “I hope people will read what I write and feel less alone. But I don’t write for anyone else. I write for myself. I write because I can’t understand my own brain and it’s really hard to get that out.”
This new book, Validate Me, is getting a major launching internationally from Harpercollins. As before, she uses the language of poetry and prose to share her emotions and experiences with an ever-growing audience. Whether she’s conjuring up memories of a drunken party, a visit to a hospital emergency room or a fractured relationship, there’s a continuing search for self in these pages and if at times her journey seems threaded with sadness and even despair, it’s also sustained by a resilient, although sometimes bleak, humour.
In the United Kingdom, the market for poetry has grown by 48 per cent over the last five years. And young women between 13 and 24 are its biggest consumers. They’re not reading Keats or Wordsworth. They’re going for people like Cox who echoes their own needs and insecurities with lines like these:
I want what I can’t reach
I want all that I can see
I want the things that I can’t touch I want it all I want so much! I want! I want! I must! I must!
“Being a teenager is hard and being a young person is very confusing.” Cox is trying to explain why her words have struck a nerve with young readers.
“We’re in a weird state, particularly with technology ... where Instagram and the world of online are places of perfection.
“Everyone is desperate to share how perfect they are, how perfect their lunches are, how expensive their clothes are. How great their holidays are.”
Her writings suggest an ambivalence toward the digital universe and social media.
She’s quick to talk about the perils of living in “such a connected digital age” and thereby “missing out on real human connections.” But she insists today that she’s reached an accommodation.
“The end of the book makes clear that it’s me who has been more of the problem. We’re very good at blaming our tools and faulty texts as opposed to admitting that we just haven’t learned to use them properly.”
She’s hopeful her readiness to be candid about her own personal challenges may help destigmatize mental illness. But her impact cannot be assessed within that context alone.
As Cox haltingly struggles to explain why, digital culture looms again. “How I feel now ... a lot of the anxieties I have over my mental illness ...” Her voice trails off, and then: “I know so many people constantly in touch with technology who are going through a similar confused state.”
So was any of Validate Me written during one of her episodes?
“Oh yes,” Cox says. She’s quietly matter-of-fact about it.
“I started writing the book in January and went to America, thought I was in love, got my heart broken, and had a manic episode. I didn’t realize it because I was trying to write the book at the same time. I knew I’d been writing but couldn’t make any sense of it. Then I came home and crashed into a depression and had a breakdown.
“Frankly it’s been a pretty tough year. The fact that I’ve managed to bring out another book — I can’t believe it happened.”
But the new book did happen. And she’s learning to monitor herself.
“I’m just 24,” she says firmly. “I’m just trying to take it slowly and very lightly.”
She’s still coming to terms with her particular creative process.
“I love writing the prose. The prose is really fun whereas the poetry is a coping mechanism. I can’t choose whether I write the poetry or not, whereas the prose I do choose to write. I have to get the poetry out.”
One critic has suggested that Cox is a spokesperson for the most anxious generation in history. She’s not sure she buys into that, but she has some advice for her followers.
“There’s always a ‘you’ in the morning who’s glad you’re still there — even if it’s after an evening when you’re not sure. So be grateful in the morning that you’re still here.”
JAMIE PORTMAN