Mile End, March 17th 2018

The snow returned for another bite. On the tube home a teenage boy with smirking friends shouted his newfound personality against us, a carriage of dry and conservative society. We signalled our shared disapproval with loaded glances. I tried to concentrate on my new book, A Little Life.

My eyes floated over the same sentence repeatedly. My mind was occupied with thoughts of the pseudo rebel throwing his iced coffee over the carriage. I would be the one to take a stand, grab the boy and drop him down the gap at Bank station. Then the carriage would share a conspiracy that he never existed. I had to begin the sentence again... 

My friend recommended A Little Life to me on an evening walk before Christmas but that speck got lost in a hurricane of 'to dos'.  The title bobbed up somewhere again, was mentioned yet again in a weekend article, and then was referenced on a t-shirt in a TV show. Soon heads popped up in the office paying testament to its force. 'Oh my GOD, I just read that! It is devastating!' A secret society of avid fans and survivors at every turn. The universe was no longer nudging, it was shoving. 

At lunch-time I found a copy in a bookshop on Brick Lane. The book was nearly as thick as it was wide. A hefty undertaking. I don't usually read long books. I felt a little more sick than excited at the thought. 

We reached Mile End. As I folded a corner and put it in my bag a hand reached out to stop me. 

"That book... you are going to cry SO MUCH." A giddy-eyed girl beside me. She must have been peering over my shoulder, itching to say something the whole time. I told her how I'd  just started but things were already looking bleak for one character in particular. Her face fell.. 

"Oh. I can't say a thing." A genuine beat of deep loss. "You'll just have to keep reading."

Just 700 pages to go.