Description

No life exists outside the times.

This is a story about one young woman coming of age, and about the place and time that shaped her: the North of England in the 1970s and 80s.

About the scorching summer of 1976 – the last Catherine Taylor would spend with both her parents in their home in Sheffield.

About the Yorkshire Ripper, the serial killer whose haunting presence in Catherine’s childhood was matched only by the aching absence of her own father.

About a country thrown into disarray by the nuclear threat and the Miners’ Strike, just as Catherine’s adolescent body was invaded by a debilitating illness.

About 1989’s ‘Second Summer of Love’, a time of sexual awakening for Catherine, and the unforeseen consequences that followed it.

About a tragic accident, and how the insidious dangers facing women would became increasingly apparent as Catherine crossed into to adulthood.

‘Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. The Stirrings is a pleasure and a shock’ Eimear McBride

‘A superb, moving and disturbing memoir – haunting and unforgettable’ Jonathan Coe

Publisher Review

Captures the fear and euphoria of growing up with precision and wry, spiky flair -- Susie Boyt Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. THE STIRRINGS is a pleasure and a shock -- Eimear McBride From chlorine and Quavers to the Jesus and Mary Chain, an engaging personal and political 1980s awakening -- Richard Beard So stylishly done, and one of the finest memoirs I've read in years -- Sunjeev Sahota What a superb, moving and disturbing memoir Catherine Taylor has written. Tracing delicate threads of connection between the political and the personal, evoking the atmosphere of the 80s and early 1990s with uncanny precision. It's haunting and unforgettable. -- Jonathan Coe The Stirrings is an evocative and moving time-slip of a memoir. With ominous overtones, a defiant spirit, and a nostalgic slice of both the euphoria and dread that saturated the '70s and '80s, Taylor's coming of age tale gifts us the friend we all longed for growing up: one who is open, funny and better read -- Jade Angeles Fitton A frank and challenging mixture of memory and anger and protest, with a strong sense of place and history. It evokes a Sheffield I knew well in the process of evolving into the city it is now - the very place names are resonant with nostalgia -- Margaret Drabble A great and devastating memoir -- Laura Cumming Inspiring in its honesty, unforgettable in its blend of grit and vulnerability -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller * Catherine Taylor's memoir The Stirrings is a dark, wry tribute to the Steel City, and her encounters with many of its best-known inhabitants . . . Her findings are presented with both poetry and wit: The Stirrings is a vivid chronicle of a young woman's journey into adulthood, and an equally vivid portrait of a place and moment in time -- Holly Williams * Telegraph * A coming-of-age memoir which charts the author's experiences growing up in 1970s and 80s Sheffield, the evocation of time and place is so good you are almost surprised when you look up and see you are elsewhere * i news * Catherine Taylor's account of her youth is a lyrical study of how place shapes character ... Assured and perceptive . . . She brilliantly evokes the "tiny traumas" of childhood . . . Haunting . . . The reader may wish this memoir were longer * Observer *