An essay by academic and writer Caroline Magennis on the choice of a childless life available to women today, and the structures that condemn women who make an active choice not to be parents.
HARPY
by Caroline Magennis
Icon Books UK, Spring 20224
(via Mushens Entertainment)
Caroline Magennis, originally from Portadown, Co. Armagh, is an academic and writer based in Manchester. Her essays on Northern Irish fiction have been featured in books published by Cambridge, Oxford, Palgrave and Routledge and her second book, Northern Irish Fiction After The Troubles: Affects, Intimacies, Pleasures, was published by Bloomsbury in August 2021. Her writing has appeared in The Independent, Prospect Magazine and The Irish Times. She has chaired literary festival events and is regularly invited to give lectures for academic and public audiences.
Father: Joshua understands the strict rules of time travel: only observe, things cannot be changed. But things are changing quickly for him. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes to attend university in London and leave the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong behind, he finds the courage to take it. From there, he feels it: this is where life begins. Stepping on that plane is the first decision that will have ramifications for generations to come.
Erin is married to handsome and thoughtful Jamie, who sells elaborate security systems: he represents safety to a woman who hasn’t always had that stability in her life. Sophia was an ambitious and successful investigative journalist until a scoop went horribly wrong – leaving her working an entry-level role in local news. Her honeymoon with supportive Mark is a chance to escape and hatch a plan for redemption. When the two women meet at the hotel pool, they spontaneously decide to go on a double date to celebrate their last night. But when a stranger spills a drink over Erin the evening ends abruptly. Hours later he is discovered dead. But it was an accident… right? Back home, and when Erin struggles to answer Sophia’s questions, it becomes clear that there’s another side to this story. Many marriages can survive anything – but when it starts on a lie is it really ’til death do us part?
Through eleven illustrated essays, GIVE ME SPACE BUT DON’T GO FAR encourages readers to understand anxiety as a part of them, a neutral thing as unavoidable and intrinsic as any other part of their body. Anxiety isn’t an obstacle, it’s a roommate. Or in Haley Weaver’s case, her anxiety is represented by a wide-eyed tangle of string, Weaver reveals over the course of the book that it isn’t an enemy to defeat or an obstacle to overcome. Anxiety just is, and it’s never going away, but if we care for it with tender curiosity and attention, it has many gifts to offer. With care, practice, and the friendship of some really great coping mechanisms, you can learn how to live with your anxiety roommate in a mutually respectful, affectionate, even meaningful way.
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of houseless people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.