Read a Girl #29: "The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories", Marina Keegan

Oh, hello there.

This month’s book was a chance encounter. Back in 2014, while on break from my masters' classes in Berlin, I lived in Bonn, Germany, for about two months, where I got myself a temporary gig at Deutsche Welle, the country’s international broadcaster. Between work and assignments I had to do for university, there wasn’t much time left for anything else - not that there was much to do in Bonn anyway - so the limited time off I had I spent walking around town or getting on the train to Cologne. 

In one of these random walks, I went into one of the few bookshops that had an English section. Among many bestsellers with dragons and witches and whatnot on the cover, one book stood out. A smiling girl wearing a yellow coat. One look at the title and I was hooked: “The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories”, by Marina Keegan. I bought it and started reading it immediately.

Marina’s writing was different from what I had previously read. Her essays were fresh, her stories felt real. It was almost as if she was one of my friends from uni going on and on about how we were still so young and the future full of possibilities we had ahead of us. Unfortunately, Marina didn’t get to experience this future herself, as her book, a collection of nine stories and nine essays, was published after she died in a car accident five days after graduating from college.

As tragic as her death was, this is not a sad book. It’s a book full of hope of what might still be. The sort of writing we need in times like these.

My first book, “a spectacularly sad ending”, is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, loss and survival. It chronicles experiences of love, loss, abuse and grief, and is for anyone who is or ever had to mend a broken heart. It's available as a paperback and also on Kindle. You can get it here.

🎵 This newsletter was written to the sounds of “Funeral”, by Phoebe Bridgers.

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My name is Renata and I am the Founder and Editor of Read a Girl, a platform aimed at promoting the work of women writers. My background is in journalism and I spent most of my career covering foreign affairs and travelling around looking for good stories to tell. Reading is a very big passion of mine. My favourite authors are Elena Ferrante, J.D. Salinger, Julian Barnes and Sylvia Plath.

You can learn more about me here and on my website.

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