Dolly Alderton is an author, journalist and podcast host born in 1989 whose bestselling memoir, Everything I Know About Love, won a National Book award in 2018. She has worked in TV as a script assistant for E4’s Fresh Meat and as a story producer for structured-reality show Made in Chelsea. She co-hosts pop culture and news podcast The High Low with writer and journalist Pandora Sykes. Her first novel, Ghosts, is published this month.
1. Restaurant
There is nothing my body appreciates more than ramen. It’s like a sauna for your insides. I went to Ramo Ramen in Kentish Town for the first time this summer and the food was so delicious, my mind almost couldn’t process it. I sat with an empty bowl of miso mushroom ramen (garnished with garlic butter, for God’s sake), sure that I would never be sad again while I knew this ramen existed. I texted a friend and told her that I’d discovered noodles that reminded me of why there’s a point to being alive. She thought this was hyperbolic. To prove it, I ordered Ramo Ramen takeaway when she came to my flat for dinner. I watched her take her first mouthful of oxtail kare kare and, I swear, saw her eyes become immediately glassy.
2. Album
Song for Our Daughter by Laura Marling
I’ve listened to Laura Marling since I was a teenager and am deeply attached to all her albums. Not just because they are beautiful and penetrating, but because it feels like I have grown up with her through every record. We’re around the same age and it feels like she’s created an extraordinary documentation of womanhood through music, poetry and mythology for her listeners. Song for Our Daughter was released in the first month of lockdown and, in a time of intense isolation, provided me with comfort and companionship, as I’m sure it did for many others. Her songs are a failsafe satnav when I’m lost in the poorly signed B-roads of my own emotions. I hope she’s still making albums when we’re both old ladies.
3. Book
I was blown away by this debut novel. The story follows a young black woman, Edie, who becomes entangled in an open marriage with a middle-aged white couple with an adopted black daughter. Every sentence is a treat to read, even when it is plumbing the bleakest truths of society and humanity. It is political and emotional, tender and sharp, absurd and relatable, heartbreaking and funny. The writing is packed with sharp observations of the most eccentric human behaviour, all propelled with an addictively page-turning plot. I’ll remember sentences like: “There are men who are an answer to a biological imperative, whom I chew and swallow, and there are men I hold in my mouth until they dissolve,” for ever. It is exquisite.
4. Newsletter
Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files
Like every other bore, I’m convinced the internet is gently and steadily corroding my focus, instincts and integrity. But there’s one little bit of it that I know is doing me good – Nick Cave’s newsletter The Red Hand Files, in which he answers questions from his fans. Every email is packed with wit, heart and wisdom, whether it’s his advice on low self-esteem (“Identify things that concern you in the world and make incremental efforts to remedy them. At all costs, try to cultivate a sense of humour”), reflections on grief (“It is an entirety. It is doing the dishes, watching Netflix, reading a book, Zooming friends, sitting alone or, indeed, shifting furniture around”) or his wife (“she has a hummingbird shyness. In social situations she displays herself for a magical, weightless moment then darts away”). A notification from The Red Hand Files is one of the few things that flashes up on my screen that I know will enrich my mind and soul. I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I once wrote in with a problem. He didn’t answer (the problem was pathetic).
5. Documentary
I adored this documentary about the shifting bonds and brotherhood between members of the Band, particularly Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm. I bawled at the ending, in which Robertson revealed his parting words to Helm on his deathbed. It reminded me of how profound coming-of-age relationships are, and how much they stick to you, even if you lose touch with the person in adulthood. Then I Googled Big Pink, the house where they wrote and recorded their album of the same name, and discovered you can now rent it. Then I started dreaming of a post-pandemic road-trip to the Catskills. If I can learn to drive in that time…
6. Gig
My first and only gig this year was Van Morrison, who I saw in September at the Palladium. It was, predictably, a strange night with a small, socially distanced audience in a huge space. We couldn’t really sing along, or drink from our plastic pint glasses, because of our face masks. But when he entered the stage, I was utterly submerged in the experience. He was joined by a jazz band and illuminated with an ever-changing rainbow of lights. That powerful, soaring vibrato-less tone of his voice has barely changed since the 60s. It was the most multisensory experience I’d had in half a year. One of his opening songs was Days Like This and, although you wouldn’t have been able to see the enormous grin behind the swathe of blue across my nose and mouth, it made me realise how grateful I’ll be when nights like this are no longer a rarity and once again become normality.
