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Helen Charman
Helen Charman is a writer and academic based in Glasgow. Her first book, Mother State – a political history of motherhood — is forthcoming from Allen Lane in 2024. She teaches in the English Studies department at Durham University.

Articles Available Online


Attachment Barbies: On Watching Grey’s Anatomy

Essay

March 2023

Helen Charman

Essay

March 2023

In August 2022, ABC announced that Ellen Pompeo, currently the highest-paid actress on American network television, was leaving Grey’s Anatomy, the show on which...

Book Review

May 2021

HOLDING THE ROOM: ON HOLLY PESTER’S ‘COMIC TIMING’

Helen Charman

Book Review

May 2021

The last poem in Holly Pester’s first collection COMIC TIMING (Granta, 2021) is called ‘Villette’; it shares its title...

Keith was not the songwriter Darren and Stewart wrote the songs Keith hit things, some of which were drums He came in one day with a song and nobody wanted to play it The song was the least of their problems They had signed with a label, so their music was used in adverts and that, it brought in some dosh, they were shameless rock sluts because the fans downloaded the songs for free Slutdom was not the issue The issue was that the contract would not let them do independent gigs Keith had had an argument with them because the Arctic Monkeys, look at the fucking Arctic Monkeys, why the fuck can’t we do what the fucking Arctic Monkeys, this being the capacity for inarticulate rage which had made him a drummer in the first   And Darren and Stewart, being songwriters, had talked and talked and talked and talked to the point that there were signatures on the contract   Then the inconceivable had happened which is that Thom Yorke sent an email inviting them to do a gig Keith said they should just do it, fuck the fucking contract but Darren and stewart   So then Keith was very quiet Never a good sign Given Keith’s known propensity to hit things other than drums So Darren said they would record the song       Keith tried to explain his concept and Darren and Stewart kept arsing about and then Sean the keyboardist sussed that it was an arsing about session and then Keith put down his sticks Darren, Stewart and Sean sussed that the beat was gone Keith, says Darren What the fuck Keith disengaged from the scaffolding of things that could be hit that made noise   He stood up he walked across the floor while Darren, Stewart and Sean varied the theme of   What the fuck He took the mic from Darren In addition to not being a songwriter Keith was not a singer he dragged the lyrics of the song over reluctant vocal chords and spat them into the mic fucking great man said Darren who did not want another guitar percussioned to subatomic particles against wall,

Contributor

November 2017

Helen Charman

Contributor

November 2017

Helen Charman is a writer and academic based in Glasgow. Her first book, Mother State – a political history...

Essay

May 2020

Where do I put myself, if public life’s destroyed? On reading Denise Riley

Helen Charman

Essay

May 2020

How do you read someone who doesn’t always want to be read? This is a question I used to...

Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’

Book Review

October 2018

Helen Charman

Book Review

October 2018

Reading Sally Rooney’s second novel Normal People is a compulsive experience. After the navy blue Faber & Faber proofs were sent out in early...
Rendering intimacy impossible, deploy lifeboats (mark yourself safe) Not listening as such, more waiting to speak, above all mark yourself, it’s so important to be safe Carry on, they demand, we’re not reeling / we are reeling Is this the place for a fountain reference? Probably ‘What first attracted you to your wife, sir?’ ‘Her delicacy / her ankles / her hatred of the Tories’                  Alive twice over but that’s a whole life gone too                you know I’m sorry, he holds his hands up, I’m                sorry, he backs away: my conscience couldn’t                keep company with your body I say, your body?                it just made me think: it’s only a nine month stay   The next time you lay a hand on me, I’ll make a perfect gleaming dive into the Thames Aren’t you glad / to be here? I am
Electioneering

Prize Entry

November 2017

Helen Charman


READ NEXT

Interview

September 2014

Interview with Laure Prouvost

Alice Hattrick

Interview

September 2014

Laure Prouvost begins to tell us about something that happened this morning. She woke up with four vegetables on...

Art

June 2016

Art and its Functions: Recent Work by Luke Hart

Rye Dag Holmboe

Art

June 2016

Luke Hart’s Wall, recently on display at London’s William Benington Gallery, is a single, large-scale sculpture composed of a...

fiction

April 2014

Submission for the Journal of Improbable Interventions

Brenda Parker

fiction

April 2014

Abstract Preparations for experimental work must be conducted without interruption to ensure experimental success. In this work, the impact...

 

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