I’ll be discussing Scarlett Thomas’ riotously enjoyable new novel Oligarchy with her at the wonderful Second Shelf bookshop. Her blackly comic novel set in a girls' boarding school satirises the hysteria of the diet industry, Instagram and young women's behaviour but it is not without heart. The Times has said of Oligarchy: “Wickedly funny … Thomas has great fun with the familiar components of the boarding school yarn, even as she subverts them. Her writing is spikily humorous and controlled … This jet-black novel begs to be dramatised”. We will be discussing excess and appetite and how Scarlett managed to make Oligarchy so hilarious and compelling at the same time. There will be a short reading by Scarlett from Oligarchy. There will also be time for audience questions and for Scarlett to sign copies of Oligarchy which will be on sale on the evening.
Visit Farley Farm House – home of Lee Miller
Lee Miller was one of the most fascinating, and beautiful, women of the 20th century. After starting her career as a fashion model, she worked (and had an affair with) with Man Ray before becoming an acclaimed war photographer and one of the first people to photograph the concentration camp at Dachau when it was liberated. After this, she married Roland Penrose — the Surrealist and co-founder of the ICA — and retired to live at Farley Farm House in Sussex.
