Mansfield and Me

Sarah Laing

A graphic memoir

LONGLISTED: Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

The only writer to inspire jealousy in Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield hung out with the modernists, dabbled in Alistair Crowley's druggy occult gatherings and spent her last days in a French commune before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 34.

Having written, ‘Oh to be a writer, a real writer’, she became as famous for her letters and diaries as for her short stories. She is regarded as a literary giant in her native New Zealand, but she had to leave the country to become one.

Sarah Laing wanted to be a real writer too – as famous as Katherine Mansfield, but not as tortured. Mansfield and Me charts her journey towards publication and parenthood against her hero’s dramatic story.

A mix of memoir, biography and fantasy set in London, Paris, New York and New Zealand, it examines how our lives connect to those of our idols.

‘Absorbing… her watercolour-washed drawings delight us’ TLS

‘I was very taken with Mansfield and Me, which puts Sarah Laing’s life – her efforts to find herself as a writer – alongside the life of Katherine Mansfield, using the vocabulary of graphic art to tell the story’ Claire Armitstead, The Guardian

‘Part biography of Katherine Mansfield, part autobiography, and part account of her nagging insecurity about her own abilities’ New Zealand Herald

‘A fabulous piece of work, and one that will stick around in Mansfield’s oeuvre, ensuring Sarah Laing’s name stays in the public consciousness’ The Reader

Paperback

Published: Lightning (May 2018)

ISBN: 9781785630705