Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't

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Some of the stories were so relatable that it was scary - particularly the ones about the teen using her interest in the occult as a distraction for how much she hates her body, or the one about the woman who had moved on from a relationship that she now recognises as the cause of her PTSD, only to discover that her ex has moved nearby. The book is a collection of snapshots that range from romantic to rousing, dystopian to hopeful, satirical to gut-wrenching.

A series of narrators entertain us with blast from the past exes, friends who are a bit rubbish, dysfunctional relationships, teenagers who believe they are witches and an admin/surveillance job that has the reader guessing if we’ve moved into a parallel universe.As well as gigging all over the UK, Eleanor has provided tour support for Josie Long, Tony Law, Frankie Boyle, Stewart Francis and Lost Voice Guy. I'm half amazed that a thought, a way of looking at something can just sit unchallenged, unexamined, for twenty years before you can take a look at it and realise that it's junk. Josie Long, comedian, who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe for over two decades, has written her first book of short stories, Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't. Published in May, it’s the culmination of years of writing that began in childhood but which took second place to other things, such as studying English at Oxford and launching a comedy career that saw her performing as a stand-up at the age of 14 and winning the BBC New Comedy Awards at 17. In some ways it does seem that controversial has become the new conventional, that outrage has become the default setting.

This collection was aptly titled, because there were quite a few occasions when I wasn't at all sure what the author meant and what she didn't. I got one done in 2016 - I was at a friend’s house and sat down one evening and wrote a story really quickly and was like ‘oh this is going to be easy, I can get it all done in a week’ then didn’t do another one for four years.It’s been amazing to draw on my life, use the pain of it, the joy of it… A few of the stories are about people who aren’t quite able to understand what it is they’re doing and why until it’s too late. I am hardly a puritan when it comes to the use of blue language, especially the f-bomb, but Josie overdoes it here. Sometimes the momentum is so slow I lost interest but when she gets it right, the ending takes on resonance and lingers like the best stories do. We zoom into someone's life, stay with them for a short period and then fly off to see someone else's life.