Arrangements in Blue
Notes on Love and Making a Life
Published on 6. April 2023
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-1-78733-389-5 (ISBN)
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
The book I've been waiting for my entire life. Utterly beautiful and funny and true. -- Dolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know About Love Marks an important shift in ideas about intimacy and solitude. * Observer * A beautiful, painful, liberating book. Amy Key writes with such tenderness and insight. -- Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City This raw, gorgeous, pulsing memoir the harbinger of a real talent. * Sunday Times * Fearless... Wonderfully, Key's prose retains all the intimacy of her verse. Arrangements in Blue is a tender, subversive study of love in its myriad forms. * New Statesman * A startlingly honest account of long-term singledom hits a courageous sweet spot, tackling the issue with heart... Her singular voice on this (almost) taboo subject is to be celebrated. * Sunday Times, *Books of the Year* * Amy Key writes with rare integrity, courage and style... A beautiful and necessary book. -- Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent 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 * Arrangements in Blue is a short read, but each page feels so full and worth savouring. * Guardian * 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 TicketMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
361 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-389-5 (9781787333895)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Amy Key is a poet and writer based in London. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Luxe and Isn't Forever, which was a Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice and a Book of the Year in the Guardian, New Statesman and The Times. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised, and her essays have appeared in At the Pond, Granta, the Poetry Review and elsewhere.