FINDING JOY AMID A LIFE OF SUFFERING

A Still Life Josie George

Bloomsbury £16.99

If you’ve been suffering from lockdown cabin fever, spare a thought for Josie George (right). Since early childhood, the firsttime author has lived with chronic illness that leaves her unable to walk more than a dozen steps without courting exhaustion and a barrage of excruciating symptoms. She’s now in her late 30s and her condition continues to baffle doctors, who over the years have offered diagnoses from lupus to mental health disorders.

Her dynamic memoir is about far more than sickness, however. Written largely from her bed in Staffordshire, it splices her intent to document a year of her life, beginning on January 1, 2018, with flashbacks charting her selfdiscovery, moving through an abusive teenage relationship and early failed marriage to single motherhood and her determination to scrape a living from her passions. As winter gives way to spring, unexpected romance renews her sense of what’s possible.

There are, inevitably, bouts of crushing fatigue and continuing pain. ‘Chronic illness is a terrible narrator,’ she notes drolly. But desire, birdsong and lessons on learning to love the body you’re in crowd these pages, as do knitting, hope and friendship.

Crucially, there is nothing woolly about George’s insistence on finding joy in the everyday. As she explains: ‘I don’t think the purpose of mindfulness is to feel reassured or relaxed or to distract you conveniently from fear. I think its purpose is to wake you up, to make you brave and powerful, to make you a revolutionary who wants to live differently, act differently.’

This book would always have found a loyal readership – its vivid prose and meticulous, kindly candour ensure it. But coming now, at a time when record numbers have been struggling with their own ill-health and when many more have been forced to slow down, it feels like a manifesto for recalibrating.