Julia Darling: a Tribute
I tried drinking whisky. I tried having a bath. I tried crying. But still I can’t sleep. It’s a quarter to two in the morning.
This week a woman died, and I can’t work out what that means. I expect death knocks everyone philosophical. The end of someone is quite a concept. How can they simply not be? How can you grieve for someone who feels no pain? Is grief necessarily selfish? Is life only an absence of death?
It means something to me. I’m moved, affected, lifted, thrown. My self is not quite myself, because another life reached a tendril into mine, stirred it about a bit.
I first heard of Julia Darling when Ally interviewed her for the Big Issue. Her novel, Crocodile Soup, had just been published. “You’ve got to read this book, it’s great,” he said. “The author, she’s lovely. She wanted to know all about you.”
Yes. He interviewed her, but somehow she ended up asking about his family. And our dog. She was particularly interested in our dog.
I met her when she read from her book at the Dancehouse. It’s a sizeable theatre for a book reading, but she was so unassuming. And yet compelling.
“That’s where I want to be,” I thought. “That’s who I want to be.”
It was a few years before we met again. Inspired by Julia among others, I’d written a novel, been published. Ecstatic but gobsmacked, I was suddenly launched into the world of book promotion. My publisher didn’t have mega-bucks to spend, and I was doing all I could to help my baby walk. Maybe Julia was worth a try...
A successful author - by this time Crocodile Soup had been shortlisted for the Orange Prize and The Taxi Driver’s Daughter longlisted for the Booker - she must have been inundated with manuscripts from hopeful new writers. But she didn’t hesitate; she told me to email a copy of my book. Not even a hard copy!
“Dear Clare, I have read first and last chapter and skimmed the rest. It looks great...very vivacious and pacy....well done! I will definitely read the whole thing when it's in book form. Here is a very short quote...let me know if you want more. Love Julia.”
The Taxi Driver’s Daughter was out then. Subtle, understated. Julia had this knack for making her characters sit next to you and talk quietly in your ear. Humble, unpretentious, they were deceptively straightforward.
And that clear sweet voice was there in her blog, too. How wonderful, to have weekly snippets of Julia to read. With the spelling mistakes and the muddled up grammar there were no airs and graces. She kept us all up to date with her little bits and bobs, and worked that Julia magic with the words.
I carry little images with me. Julia, riding a bike. Julia, walking on the beach. Julia, going to the shops or travelling in a taxi. She painted these pictures in my head. Sometimes she talked about writing retreats. I felt like a little girl, nose against the sweet shop window. Writing retreats! Such things existed? Wow.
This blog wouldn’t have occurred to me without hers, and is but a pale copy.
Whenever death touches me, I feel guilt. If I grieve, I am presumptuous. I haven’t earnt the right. If I don’t, I’m a cold fish. The meaning of death, how it feels to lose a loved one, the fragility of us all.... guilt for unravelling it in my head. Detached. Curious. Intrigued.
Unravelling. I’ve just looked, but I can’t find a JD poem containing that word. Not on a quick flick through. But I bet there is one, somewhere. It might be about knitting, something she got really into recently. So when my mate Debs made a short film on the subject, Julia was eager for a copy. Knitting A Love Song is about a young girl who knits a scarf for a teenage boy... it brings them together in the end. Julia loved it.
“The film is just delightful. Thanks so much. i particularly liked the bit in the wool shop. Knitting is becoming so 'in' that I might have to take up something else like snail farming.”
She always asked after Ally. She was genuinely interested in how he was doing. She hardly knew us at all. Not really. And yet she treated us like old friends. I travelled up to Newcastle a few months ago, just to see a production of hers. I forget the details; it was a work in progress, I think. A short two-header, set in a Turkish baths. I was on my own, and she didn’t hesitate in asking me to join her table. She budged some chairs around, introduced me to her friends.
The last time I saw her was five weeks ago. It was Manchester Central Library, an incredible circular building, with curved rooms and a hole through the middle. The room was tall-ceilinged, wood-panelled, bathed in a golden light. Honestly. Something to do with the wood, I suspect. She read some of her poems, and I was so struck with her vibrancy, her humour, her life.
I bought her anthologies, Sudden Collapses in Public Places and Apology for Absence, and she signed them for me. I read them on the tram home, giggling happily at this one:
IMPERSONATION
because I have all day
I take time with
your NINETEEN PAGE FORM
in re-invented handwriting
I write a false name
an invented address
in an avenue
with a view
I find myself sniggering
HA HA this new woman
will unnerve the computer
startle the data base
she will have a doctor
with wings
she will have
no children
no history of diabetes
cancer or mental illness
or a single allergy
no pin number
no postcode
she will have no
category or shoe size
SHE DOESN’T WEAR SHOES
SHE IS A THOUSAND YEARS OLD
her existence will send a thrill
through the corridors
of marketing
like discovering
a Tasmanian tiger
in Northumberland Street
she is as untrodden
as a silky desert
unperturbed as new milk
she was born in a crack
between two millennia
here is my form
I’ll tell the receptionist
my smile is a disentangled knot
there goes another one
she’ll say, nibbling her nail
they give me the creeps
as if it was that easy
and she’ll rip it to confetti
and hand me another
start again properly
Mrs Darling she’ll snap
forms aren’t funny
Time runs out.
I wanted replacements for my signed books, that were lost in a plastic bag. Sure enough, new copies arrived in a Jiffy bag, as if by magic. “To sweet Clare, with thanks for her nice emails and support” and “keep on writing girl! Thanks for all your VERVE, Love Julia D X”
And Julia wanted her trip to... Somethingia... um... Umbria? Is that a real place? I kept thinking she’d missed the C off Cumbria. Whatever. She didn’t make it to Erbria, but she did “hoik herself out of bed” and get to the dress rehearsal of Manifesto for a New City.
But “surely a body like this doesn't belong on the earth,” she wrote at the end of last week. The post was entitled “Friday Night, Staying Alive.” Maybe she’d saved the title up specially. It was that sparkle again. The one you could see in her eyes. This one:

Julia has taught me that cancer, and everything, is about life. Not death. That as long as there is blood in your veins there’s a reason to hold your head up, and smile at the sky.
On Tuesday her lover put a post on her blog, to say that Julia was “sleepy and tired”. She wasn’t going to make it to the launch of First Aid Kit for the Mind, which was this evening.
Last night I went out with a friend who is facing another bout of chemotherapy. She asked me to email Julia and tell her how much she had touched her life. I came home from the restaurant, only to find the notice on Julia’s website.
Sometimes time runs out.
DON’T WORRY
about the food you haven’t bought,
if your daughter caught that train,
the bill that came, the twinge
in your right leg. Don’t fuss.
The washing on the line
will dry again. It’s not your fault
So what if you lied?
Don’t be ashamed.
And don’t worry that you promised.
It doesn’t matter about those promises. Let them go.
Just tell her you don’t like her if you don’t.
You needn’t see the doctor with bad breath.
Behave badly. Lie on the floor.
Throw a tantrum if you’re bored.
Be late. Be sordid. Eat six pies.
Or trick them by being euphoric.
Above your head a flock of geese
are flying South. Beneath your feet
worms aren’t worrying.
by Julia Darling.
More tributes to Julia.
A poem inspired by Julia.
P.S. I'm running in the Race for Life in Woodbank Park (Stockport), 3rd July, in aid of Cancer Research UK. You can sponsor me if you like.
This week a woman died, and I can’t work out what that means. I expect death knocks everyone philosophical. The end of someone is quite a concept. How can they simply not be? How can you grieve for someone who feels no pain? Is grief necessarily selfish? Is life only an absence of death?
It means something to me. I’m moved, affected, lifted, thrown. My self is not quite myself, because another life reached a tendril into mine, stirred it about a bit.
I first heard of Julia Darling when Ally interviewed her for the Big Issue. Her novel, Crocodile Soup, had just been published. “You’ve got to read this book, it’s great,” he said. “The author, she’s lovely. She wanted to know all about you.”
Yes. He interviewed her, but somehow she ended up asking about his family. And our dog. She was particularly interested in our dog.
I met her when she read from her book at the Dancehouse. It’s a sizeable theatre for a book reading, but she was so unassuming. And yet compelling.
“That’s where I want to be,” I thought. “That’s who I want to be.”
It was a few years before we met again. Inspired by Julia among others, I’d written a novel, been published. Ecstatic but gobsmacked, I was suddenly launched into the world of book promotion. My publisher didn’t have mega-bucks to spend, and I was doing all I could to help my baby walk. Maybe Julia was worth a try...
A successful author - by this time Crocodile Soup had been shortlisted for the Orange Prize and The Taxi Driver’s Daughter longlisted for the Booker - she must have been inundated with manuscripts from hopeful new writers. But she didn’t hesitate; she told me to email a copy of my book. Not even a hard copy!
“Dear Clare, I have read first and last chapter and skimmed the rest. It looks great...very vivacious and pacy....well done! I will definitely read the whole thing when it's in book form. Here is a very short quote...let me know if you want more. Love Julia.”
The Taxi Driver’s Daughter was out then. Subtle, understated. Julia had this knack for making her characters sit next to you and talk quietly in your ear. Humble, unpretentious, they were deceptively straightforward.
And that clear sweet voice was there in her blog, too. How wonderful, to have weekly snippets of Julia to read. With the spelling mistakes and the muddled up grammar there were no airs and graces. She kept us all up to date with her little bits and bobs, and worked that Julia magic with the words.
I carry little images with me. Julia, riding a bike. Julia, walking on the beach. Julia, going to the shops or travelling in a taxi. She painted these pictures in my head. Sometimes she talked about writing retreats. I felt like a little girl, nose against the sweet shop window. Writing retreats! Such things existed? Wow.
This blog wouldn’t have occurred to me without hers, and is but a pale copy.
Whenever death touches me, I feel guilt. If I grieve, I am presumptuous. I haven’t earnt the right. If I don’t, I’m a cold fish. The meaning of death, how it feels to lose a loved one, the fragility of us all.... guilt for unravelling it in my head. Detached. Curious. Intrigued.
Unravelling. I’ve just looked, but I can’t find a JD poem containing that word. Not on a quick flick through. But I bet there is one, somewhere. It might be about knitting, something she got really into recently. So when my mate Debs made a short film on the subject, Julia was eager for a copy. Knitting A Love Song is about a young girl who knits a scarf for a teenage boy... it brings them together in the end. Julia loved it.
“The film is just delightful. Thanks so much. i particularly liked the bit in the wool shop. Knitting is becoming so 'in' that I might have to take up something else like snail farming.”
She always asked after Ally. She was genuinely interested in how he was doing. She hardly knew us at all. Not really. And yet she treated us like old friends. I travelled up to Newcastle a few months ago, just to see a production of hers. I forget the details; it was a work in progress, I think. A short two-header, set in a Turkish baths. I was on my own, and she didn’t hesitate in asking me to join her table. She budged some chairs around, introduced me to her friends.
The last time I saw her was five weeks ago. It was Manchester Central Library, an incredible circular building, with curved rooms and a hole through the middle. The room was tall-ceilinged, wood-panelled, bathed in a golden light. Honestly. Something to do with the wood, I suspect. She read some of her poems, and I was so struck with her vibrancy, her humour, her life.
I bought her anthologies, Sudden Collapses in Public Places and Apology for Absence, and she signed them for me. I read them on the tram home, giggling happily at this one:
IMPERSONATION
because I have all day
I take time with
your NINETEEN PAGE FORM
in re-invented handwriting
I write a false name
an invented address
in an avenue
with a view
I find myself sniggering
HA HA this new woman
will unnerve the computer
startle the data base
she will have a doctor
with wings
she will have
no children
no history of diabetes
cancer or mental illness
or a single allergy
no pin number
no postcode
she will have no
category or shoe size
SHE DOESN’T WEAR SHOES
SHE IS A THOUSAND YEARS OLD
her existence will send a thrill
through the corridors
of marketing
like discovering
a Tasmanian tiger
in Northumberland Street
she is as untrodden
as a silky desert
unperturbed as new milk
she was born in a crack
between two millennia
here is my form
I’ll tell the receptionist
my smile is a disentangled knot
there goes another one
she’ll say, nibbling her nail
they give me the creeps
as if it was that easy
and she’ll rip it to confetti
and hand me another
start again properly
Mrs Darling she’ll snap
forms aren’t funny
Time runs out.
I wanted replacements for my signed books, that were lost in a plastic bag. Sure enough, new copies arrived in a Jiffy bag, as if by magic. “To sweet Clare, with thanks for her nice emails and support” and “keep on writing girl! Thanks for all your VERVE, Love Julia D X”
And Julia wanted her trip to... Somethingia... um... Umbria? Is that a real place? I kept thinking she’d missed the C off Cumbria. Whatever. She didn’t make it to Erbria, but she did “hoik herself out of bed” and get to the dress rehearsal of Manifesto for a New City.
But “surely a body like this doesn't belong on the earth,” she wrote at the end of last week. The post was entitled “Friday Night, Staying Alive.” Maybe she’d saved the title up specially. It was that sparkle again. The one you could see in her eyes. This one:

Julia has taught me that cancer, and everything, is about life. Not death. That as long as there is blood in your veins there’s a reason to hold your head up, and smile at the sky.
On Tuesday her lover put a post on her blog, to say that Julia was “sleepy and tired”. She wasn’t going to make it to the launch of First Aid Kit for the Mind, which was this evening.
Last night I went out with a friend who is facing another bout of chemotherapy. She asked me to email Julia and tell her how much she had touched her life. I came home from the restaurant, only to find the notice on Julia’s website.
Sometimes time runs out.
DON’T WORRY
about the food you haven’t bought,
if your daughter caught that train,
the bill that came, the twinge
in your right leg. Don’t fuss.
The washing on the line
will dry again. It’s not your fault
So what if you lied?
Don’t be ashamed.
And don’t worry that you promised.
It doesn’t matter about those promises. Let them go.
Just tell her you don’t like her if you don’t.
You needn’t see the doctor with bad breath.
Behave badly. Lie on the floor.
Throw a tantrum if you’re bored.
Be late. Be sordid. Eat six pies.
Or trick them by being euphoric.
Above your head a flock of geese
are flying South. Beneath your feet
worms aren’t worrying.
by Julia Darling.
More tributes to Julia.
A poem inspired by Julia.
P.S. I'm running in the Race for Life in Woodbank Park (Stockport), 3rd July, in aid of Cancer Research UK. You can sponsor me if you like.