how to survive in the wilderness

tips for the approaching winter (plus a special offer)

I started writing Juvenescence in May 2022 a few months before my last book came out, a childhood memoir called Where You End and I Begin. In the fall of that year my marriage fell apart, a sad event which coincided with my husband falling ill and suddenly vanishing from our lives. I subsequently found myself a single parent in London, living in a house which was not in my name with two grief-stricken children I had little means of supporting on a freelance writer’s income.

Inflation was sky-rocketing — this was at the height of the cost-of-living crisis — and almost instantly the boys and I fell into a debt spiral. At one point a bailiff came to the door and I invited him in for tea. He politely declined to hear my sad story and said he’d clamped the car and would be back shortly for the flat screen. I ransacked the house and found an old Canadian Visa that magically still worked. He thanked me and left. I still don’t know what the debt was for. It doesn’t matter anyway.

The good news was my career was going fine. My aforementioned memoir had been published simultaneously in three countries received many favourable notices and I was working on a new book I hoped to sell — right after I dealt with Social Services, the Family Courts, the NHS social care system, worked out where the local food banks were (everywhere as it turned out) and filled out 857 forms in an effort to qualify for financial relief in order to keep the electricity and heat on. The process is still ongoing. I will finish the novel eventually.

Then, in the midst of all this, another unfortunate event occurred, which I go into in a bit more detail below the paywall, but the elevator-version is that I was the recipient of a baseless public attack that left my reputation and income in tatters. This kind of thing happens to people in the public sphere but in my case the timing was brutal. Then again, sometimes life picks you up by the scruff of the neck and chucks you into the night, hollering, Good luck! See you next spring! leaving you to gather your whimpering children and limp off into the wilderness.

As we stumbled shivering through the woods on that months-long winter’s night, I was advised not to write about any aspect of our experience ever, to just let people forget and move on as if none of it had happened. All around us, people who knew what had happened studiously pretended nothing was amiss. My children were deeply confused by this. They didn’t yet understand the stigma that comes with sudden affliction and poverty. Nor did they yet realise that in the absence of an obvious villain, people will instinctively blame you for your circumstances because looking at your vulnerability terrifies them.

For me, as a writer who has always written honestly about my life and experience, behaving as if nothing was happening seemed a kind of madness. So I wrote a bit about it here — but only very occasionally and in carefully veiled terms for legal reasons. I wanted to be honest with my readers but at the same time I didn’t want to go on and on about the chaos this string of events had thrown us into because a) I did not want it to become our whole story (which it isn’t) and b) victim narratives are exhausting and have a pernicious effect on the worldview of the storyteller.¹

Writing below the paywall made me feel safe, not just because I needed the money (obviously and desperately, to feed my sons who eat SO MUCH FOOD) but because it circled the wagons of my audience. While people will happily hate-follow you, they’re not likely to hate-pay you. And if they do? I figured, Fine. I’ll take it. Last time I checked they still accept troll-bucks at Sainsbury’s.

During that long dark winter I felt like an outcast in the wilderness of my own life. Anyone’s who’s had a similar experience will know how this feels, which is basically like psychological equivalent of gum-grafting surgery in a solitary cell without anaesthetic. In spite of all this I tried really, really hard not to feel sorry for myself. But my god. That feeling. The total shock and alienation from the life and identity I’d previously held dear. The inexplicable social scorn. As I’d somehow brought this wave of bad fortune on our house through my own poor judgement and recklessness. The one major consolation is that somehow, along the way, I managed to learn some serious tactical survival skills. Shit really does happen in life and sometimes it’s not your fault. But there are always better and worse ways of coping with it.

Things might fall apart, but you don’t have to. What follows below the paywall is the un-redacted story of how I managed this feat, albeit imperfectly.

It’s the story of how I clawed my way back to a modicum of financial and emotional stability, saved what was left of my career and glued my shattered little family back together. And also how I managed to keep on loving and caring for my kids even when I was terrified and lacked almost any of the necessary financial or emotional resources. Because I did all that — I managed it — and while nobody’s going to give me a medal for it, I know how much it matters.

I’m also now acutely aware that there are loads of other people out there grappling with similar problems and I want to say: I’ve been where you are and I see you. I know it feels like the world doesn’t give a shit, but I do. I don’t care what the palace thinks anymore than the PTA does, but you deserve a medal.

And now (forgive me) I’m also going to take this opportunity urge you to buy a subscription if you haven’t already. I only do this once or twice a year and I’m doing it now, along with a special offer (see discount button below). My pitch is that I write a lot on here, substantially more than most voices Substack but I’m also mindful not to inundate your already over-crowded inbox. I take pains over my weekly essays and ripostes and — clincher — I always write honestly. My aim with Juvenescence is what it’s always been, ever since I started writing a weekly newspaper column back in the late 90s: To let my readers see all of me. Yes, helpless honesty is a weird career goal, it’s not for everyone, but it’s mine and I submit myself to it for your pleasure. I endeavour to write thoughtfully, humanely and with real emotion and humour. I don’t believe my moods, opinions and arguments are mutually exclusive nor do I try to hide them. We are all multitudes and I want my readers to see and hear and judge me in all my contradictions, because you are multitudes too. There’s no single theme, I’m afraid. I’ll subject you to my thoughts politics, art, psychology, philosophy, books, the vagaries of human relationships and the weird epiphany I had last week making a batch of quick pickles, but I’m invariably honest, often to a point that infuriates people and prompts mass unsubscribes. I’ve been at this a while and I’m used it.

What I can promise you as a paid subscriber is this: All of me. Every prickly, curious, occasionally-hilarious, under-copy-edited inch. I’ll give you all my thoughts, feelings, opinions, observations, bad jokes and good jokes and I’ll deliver them mostly in words (but also sometimes video, if I’m feeling well-rested) and I will do so independently, without interference. So that’s my pitch. If you like it, join me on the other side. Everyone’s invited, I don’t even care if you hate me.²