Conviction

by Denise Mina

I said that one of the stories in the Arabian Nights is specifically about the urge to tell a story. It’s primal, the need

to tell. It’s not about the listener but the storyteller. In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.

It was produced before stories could only be one thing, before the form was set.

Our stories weren’t disguised curriculum vitae. We didn’t tell them as a way of boasting or declaring our relative place in the social order. There was none of that crap. These were stories to entertain, told for the shape of them, for the sake of them, for the love of a tale. It was all about the stories and the shapes of the stories. Round ones, spirals, perfect arcs, a ninety-degree take-off with a four-bump landing, and one of his, I remember vividly, was an absurdist finger trap. Whatever happened afterwards, whoever he turned out to be really, at that point it was pure with me and Leon.

Grief is a scar. The tissue is tough and when it’s cut again, it heals poorly.

you have to fit into life, or waste a lot of time and energy wishing it would fit in with you.

‘The eternal companions of all clever women are mistrust and scorn.’