What Hilary Mantel Did For Me, in a Year of Wolf Hall
Never Forget that Words Can Change Your Life
It is almost a year since I brought a small list of newsletter subscribers to Substack and began writing here. It was an impulsive decision, and I didn’t have a plan. My first post was a roundup of 2023. My second was some thoughts about writing. But January is the anniversary of my brother’s death, plus my “biological birthday” (my official birthday is in June now; fewer traumatic memories, better weather). January is a month when my past tends to haunt me. And this January, the Ghost of January Past scared out of me the first buds of some powerful fruit.
My year has been book-ended by Wolf Hall. Here in the UK, those of us who love quality historical drama await the final episodes of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, Peter Kominsky and Peter Straughan’s beautiful screen version of Hilary Mantel’s final novel. The series will finish on December 15th. But my year — and in a very real way, the trajector…
