Description

Is it possible life without romantic love isn’t so bad?

An essential memoir about building life on your own terms

***A SUNDAY TIMES AND INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023***

‘The book I’ve been waiting for my entire life’
DOLLY ALDERTON, author of Everything I Know About Love

‘Marks an important shift in ideas about intimacy’
OBSERVER

‘The harbinger of real talent’
SUNDAY TIMES

When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn’t happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a life lived in the absence of romantic love.

Using Joni Mitchell’s seminal album Blue – which shaped Key’s expectations of love – as an anchor, Arrangements in Blue elegantly honours a life lived completely by, and for, oneself. Building a home, travelling alone, choosing whether to be a mother, recognising her own milestones, learning the limits of self-care and the expansive potential of self-friendship, Key uncovers the many forms of connection and care that often go unnoticed.

With profound candour and intimacy, Arrangements in Blue explores the painful feelings we are usually too ashamed to discuss: loneliness, envy, grief and failure. The result is a book which inspires us to live and love more honestly.

Publisher Review

Arrangements in Blue combines memoir with gentle manifesto, investigating our cultural obsession with coupledom ... [It] transforms the hyper-personal into a tender, universal portrait of fashioning a life on your own terms. * i * Deeply moving... A study of love - platonic and romantic, lost and found - Amy's memoir demonstrates the power of music on forming a self. * i-D, Books to be Excited for in 2023 * A beautiful, painful, liberating book. Amy Key writes with such tenderness and insight. -- Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City Amy Key writes with rare integrity, courage and style... a beautiful and necessary book. -- Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent A gorgeous manifesto for a solo life, the power of music and friendships and a reckoning with the possibilities of love and fulfilment. -- Sinead Gleeson, author of Constellations A seriously beautiful and important work I feel lucky to have encountered and which will change how many think about love in all its iterations. -- Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation In Arrangements in Blue Amy Key finds a language, searing in its depth and honesty, for desire, shame, grief and, crucially, for compassion. -- Kayo Chingonyi, A Blood Condition Profound and poetic, vulnerable yet brave, I devoured Amy Key's memoir about love, loss, memory and hope. An incredible writer, a stunning debut. -- Lisa McGee, creator of Derry Girls There is a whole life pulsing within these pages, written with both clarity and eloquence ... A book to be read in astonishment and in admiration. Bewitching. -- Doireann Ni Ghriofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat An exquisite book whose beauty sweetly stung me. Amy writes just like Joni sings... with ecstatic feminine power. -- May-Lan Tan, author of Things to Make and Break Arrangements in Blue took my breath away ... Even in the process of reading it for the first time I knew it would be a book I would return to again and again. -- Sophie Mackintosh, author of Blue Ticket Amy Key's extraordinary Arrangements in Blue isn't merely a commentary on Joni Mitchell's Blue, but something bolder, more personal and shape-shifting ... It makes itself up on its own terms. An intimate, absorbing inquiry. -- Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World From grief to anger to full-throttled joy, Amy Key hits every note of feeling with perfect pitch... A brave and brilliant exploration of how one woman lives both alone and alongside romance. An absolutely gorgeous work. -- Heather Christle, author of The Crying Book I love Amy Key. -- Lauren Laverne Filled with lyrical turns of phrase, this insightful take on living solo will appeal to poets, dreamers and anyone marching to the beat of their own drum. It's a lush and moving memoir. * Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review* * [With] beautiful writing... Arrangements in Blue joins a wider investigation of singleness that has been blooming in recent years. * Observer * This raw, gorgeous, pulsing memoir is great, the harbinger of a real talent. * Sunday Times *