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I wish more people would read ... The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank | Hadley Freeman

As much of a stylist as St Aubyn, Bank tends to be dismissed because she’s writing about being single in New York. But this book is perfect

I find it very hard to talk about The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, even though I talk about it all the time. I’m completely obsessed with it, and I’m obsessed with how hardly anyone has heard of it.

It goes beyond being my favourite book – I have lots of favourite books: Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, Edward St Aubyn’s Some Hope. The Wonder Spot is my perfect book. The tone is perfect, the stories are perfect, the characters are perfect and every word, seemingly so casually chosen, is perfect. In many ways, Bank is as much of a stylist as St Aubyn, who also always chooses the perfect word. But whereas he is celebrated, she tends to be dismissed, because he is a serious male writer who writes about child abuse and addiction, and she is a funny female writer who writes about being single in New York. And that’s how that old chestnut goes.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ztPIU9

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