Separation

A double loss: The Möbius Strip, by Catherine Lacey, reviewed

The Möbius Book has been variously described as ‘a hybrid work that is both fiction and non-fiction’ and a ‘memoir-cum-novel’. Catherine Lacey herself asserts that it is a work of non-fiction, but with a qualifying ‘however’. It comprises two narratives, first- and third-person, and is published to be flipped 180 degrees. Ali Smith’s How to be Both had a similar format, as did Mark Danielewski’s Only Revolutions. All three force the reader into making a choice and living with the consequences. This is not cosmetic, as The Möbius Book is about decisions and repercussions. Lacey writes in the aftermath of two break-ups: a romantic one with a man referred to

A poet finds home in a patch of nettles

Towards the end of a long relationship – ‘resolved to have a conversation about the Future, which meant Separating’ – Nancy Campbell’s partner suffered a stroke. Campbell’s life then became a hell of hospital visits, supporting and fearing for the brilliant Anna, an intellectual who worked with virus analysts in Moscow, reduced by brain insult and aphasia to a kind of infancy. Thunderstone is the story of Campbell’s response to this crisis. Her diary extracts jump from Anna’s stroke in 2019 and her slow healing, to Campbell’s own new life, which begins when Anna is strong enough to be encouraged to move on, from June to September 2021. Campbell is