Do you have a problem that needs Fictional Therapy?
Plus, announcements! News! Updates from past letter-writers!
Hi lovely readers! Just a few updates today rather than a full post (but you’ll receive a full post this Sunday, pinky promise. It’s going to be a good one, about learning to trust again after difficult relationships, with E.M. Forster as a guide).
Over the last few months I’ve been moved and honoured by the problems you’ve shared with me. You’ve asked for advice on how to deal with intrusive neighbours, warring family members, and inertia at work - plus you wondered how to move on after crossing the world to tell a girl you loved her, and whether ‘old women could get away with behaving like young men’, in the words of our sex-positive letter writer herself. THANK YOU for trusting me with these private and personal questions. I hope the literary advice I gave you was helpful and comforting.
The time has now come for me to do another call out for problems - but first, as I’ve had an influx of new subscribers lately (we’re reaching the 500 mark - hooray), here’s a quick reminder of what Fictional Therapy actually is.
In this newsletter, I use insights from classic literature to shed light on your modern-day dilemmas. So, you might learn what Jane Austen’s novels can teach us about red flags, or what Charlotte Bronte’s work has to say about self-reliance. It’s an agony aunt column for book nerds. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s serious, depending on the subject matter - but it’s always about books and feelings, and it almost always comes out on Sundays.
However, this whole shenanigan only works if you send in problems, because I refuse to make them up myself - so go on, get whatever it is off your chest. Your submission is entirely anonymous - I don’t even see your email address. Click this link to write to me. Write to me!! I guarantee you’ll be doing a stranger who’s been worrying about exactly the same thing as you a massive favour.
And, if you have written to me in the past - everyone who reads this column is honestly desperate to know how you are getting on. Was my advice helpful? Did you follow it? What happened next? I’d be so grateful if you’d consider writing in with an update and I would love to share it with readers. Please click this link and use the regular Google form to get in touch. Thank you!!
Now, if you’re new here, you might be wondering why I write this column. Well, I’m a playwright and bookseller, so I already spend most of my time thinking about how and why stories affect people. I genuinely believe reading can help us process difficult feelings, and it’s a pleasure to share some of my observations with you, as well as to hear your own observations in the comments.
I also studied English Literature at Oxford, which I absolutely loved - but it was a time in which I was encouraged to read in a very distanced, ‘objective’, detached manner. And while there’s absolutely a place for this in literary criticism, there’s also a place for being moved, dazzled and transformed by books - for acknowledging they had an effect on you. A reader ‘comes to the book from life’, in the words of critical theorist Louise Rosenblatt, who encourages a kind of spiral-shaped reading practice - one in which we read, reflect on our own reservoir of experiences and memories, and then return to the words with a deeper sense of engagement. (Sometimes I talk about literary theory too! See this post in which I explain your love of hot and cold men using narrative theory.) Fictional Therapy is a place for talking about books as things that readers exist in relationship with - here, we see the act of reading as something that can change you.
If you believe in this mission, you might want to support me! Writing this column takes a long time - I have to reread lots of classic novels (okay, that is quite nice) and then weave all my thoughts together into a lovely answer. To help make this big commitment sustainable, I’ll soon be launching a tier for paying subscribers - there will be bonus features such as more rules for living, taken from literature; posts about my life as a writer; and even a private subscriber thread in which I’ll release every problem in advance, so you’ll get to suggest your own views/ideas/books for me to reference in that week’s answer. If you’d like to be part of this when it arrives, you can pledge your support now - you won’t get charged until I launch in full.
Okay, we’re done. I’m just going to share one last thing with you: I received an update from the mother who wrote to me about how her in-laws had rejected her trans son. If you haven’t read the original column, do that first! I’m publishing this update with my correspondent’s permission, of course - but I thought it was a beautiful reflection on how generational cycles can shift and heal over time, so I wanted to share it with you. It actually made me cry; talk about being affected by reading. So, here you go - and thanks again, all of you, for subscribing to this newsletter.
Dear Emma, I just wanted to thank you for your wise, empathetic response to my anonymously submitted Fictional Therapy dilemma. My husband and I are charting a course very similar to what you’ve recommended, keeping his parents at a cordial but well-defined distance; and with the birth of our first grandchild (to one of our other sons) just a few days ago, we’re still hoping they might soften their stance eventually for the sake of family unity. We’ve assured them that the door will always be open for them to rejoin our close, loving family circle — which is our way of telling them that they’re the outcasts here, not our son! And on the bright side: their awful behaviour has strengthened our own resolve to love our gorgeous new grandson unconditionally and without judgement, no matter who or what he may choose to become.
So sad to read about that predicament, which feels very topical to me as two friends have mentioned their trans relatives recently. One, a grandmother, had barely spoken about her grandchild until a group of us were having coffee and the subject came up. We talked about the difficulties and what the grandchild must have been going through, but also the positive fact that this was 2024 when such issues are out in the open and not something to be ashamed of. After the conversation, the grandmother said that she felt much happier about her grandchild; I think she had felt embarrassed and then realised that this wasn't necessary.
Last week I had a drink with another friend, who was telling me about her trans nephew. They (we both have difficulty with using the plural pronoun and wish there were an alternative!) 'came out' on her last visit, if this is the correct terminology and she thanked them for telling her. She then told me of a photograph of them going to a ball, in men's clothing, and said she saw the picture of a happy, confident young person; it would have been very different if she had been wearing a dress.
I think it must be difficult for older generations to come to terms with today's society, and it also depends on general outlook, understanding and acceptance, but as you said, even if the 'problem' is not identical, our response to it can be guided by fictional therapy and Antigone was an inspired choice!