A voice you just can’t ignore
Here’s a voice — a fierce, binge-drunk, entertaining, intelligent voice — you can’t ignore. British journalist Caitlin Moran (author of How to Be a Woman and How to Build a Girl and creator of TV’s semi-autobiographical Raised By Wolves) has come out with Moranifesto, a collection of some of her recent columns from the Times, interspersed with a few longer original pieces.
Moranifesto shows a little more of Moran’s serious side.
Despite its share of lighthearted and sometimes hilarious bits, the running thread is her outrage at the world’s inequalities and her rallying cry to make things better.
In sum, it’s the personal manifesto of a self-described “strident, forthright, and notoriously ‘oversharey’ rogue suffragette.”
Moran has divided the book into thirds: musings on modern life, issues concerning women and the future. But there’s a lot of crossover. “Why we cheered in the streets when Margaret Thatcher died” has landed in the otherwise blithe first section, while her boozy Sunday lunch with the longtime object of her public lust, actor Benedict Cumberbatch (at his parents’ house), shows up in the “future” section. Moran, 41, is at her most powerful and authentic when she writes about women and the annoyances and horrors we shouldn’t have to put up with, from cystitis and our “monthly faultiness” to female genital mutilation and the fear of rape.
But she also celebrates women, including herself.
The happily married mother of two girls glorifies in her own soft, fat belly: “I find it luxurious to gently fist my hands into it, like a mink stole.”
She’s wildly passionate about motherhood and the adventure of giving birth to a “homunculus” who “will effortfully punch its way out of your ‘special flower,’ a tiny, screaming, ungrateful creature who resembles an enraged otter in a jumpsuit.”
Since most of the book consists of reprints, some of the cultural references are just old enough to seem dated, specifically columns about the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (2012), the song “Get Lucky” (2013), Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) and even, jarringly, Hillary Clinton.
But other pieces, such as “The Smells of Your Childhood” and the epilogue “Letter to My Daughter,” are exquisite and timeless.