I had first read the phrase ‘corpsing’ in Anne Enright’s novel Actress. It refers to the moment when an actor breaks character as if their role has abandoned them like a spirit from their body, leaving them mute on stage with an audience of eyes on them. In Sophie White’s book she plays many different roles: writer, daughter, funeral planner, mother. None of these roles can be assumed at the same time, they all require her full, concentrated energy. And besides funeral planner, White struggles to continually and convincingly perform these roles for long. She breaks character sometimes, but she is never left mute. The title is fitting in another way. The book describes genuine horrors: the grip of alcoholism, the grief and relief of losing a sick family member and the isolation of motherhood. Who knew something unsavoury could be so delicious? 

 

Relishing this memoir on grief is something that comes only when the reader adapts to the structure of the text. The story is written in short chapters sorted into five parts, but narrative structure is notably absent throughout the piece, giving it little sense of forward-momentum. The book starts with chaotic screams of birth and sobs of grief and the progression of the book comes from that energy winding down to a sort of peace. While reading it, and certainly in reflection, it is difficult to differentiate one part from another because it all covers the same ground. This lack of structure is confusing until the “scattershot fashion” is acknowledged by White. Then it becomes meaningful. Her narrative voice, like a screw, must revolve again and again to sink deeper inside the stopper for it to be ripped out. For all of the parts of White’s life that she would prefer remain mutually exclusive, she cannot stop them from pooling together. This unplugged narrative eventually characterises the book and facilitates the best of its writing. 

 

White’s insights into emotional trauma are treasures. Her forensic delineation of a psychological landscape within darkness is remarkable because it is not unemotional, as much analysis of emotional distress prides itself in being. Distance is not distinction. Grief and death are less synonymous than grief and regret. As White writes, they blend together like dark colours on an artist’s palette, complementing and enhancing the efficacy of each other, like kool aid and cyanide. “Grief made me mean as f**k”.

 

To end, a note on form: if this was a work of fiction, I would feel comfortable disputing the narrator’s confessional style. Since it is a brilliant piece of literary non-fiction, I will only say that confessions should be reserved for people who have done something wrong, not for people who feel they have handled situations poorly, that is something as natural as birth and inevitable as death. 

Corpsing: My Body and Other Horror Shows is released 4 March 2021 by Tramp Press