A Memoir in 65 Postcards & The Recovery Diaries
COMING 28 JUNE 2024
Inspired by Julia Cameron’s classic The Artist’s Way, Eleanor set out on a project to write every morning, and crucially, to publish it on Substack that same morning; a commitment to press the button as soon as she’d finished, and before she had time to regret it. She set rules: she’d do no forward planning, she’d tell whatever story came to mind, the writing would take no longer than an hour, the reading of it, no longer than a minute. What came was A Memoir In 65 Postcards, the personal story that had been knocking about her system for well over twenty years. Questions were answered, and a puzzle was put together. Using the same rules of engagement, its follow up, The Recovery Diaries, became a deeper exploration of what emerged and how she is now.
With humour and honesty, from a pagan commune to sobriety, this collection of essays and stories form a unique exploration of wealth, survival, the questions that haunt us, and what makes us human. It’s you and me. It’s where our worlds collide.
A Perfect Explanation
Longlisted for The Desmond Elliott Prize 2019
Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize 2019
Observer: Fiction to look out for in 2019
The i Paper’s 30 of the best new debut novels to read in 2019
Scottish Review of Books: 2019 in Prospect
As featured on BBC Woman’s Hour, Sky Sunrise and London Live
Exploring themes of ownership and abandonment, Eleanor Anstruther’s bestselling debut is a fictionalised account of the true story of Enid Campbell (1892–1964), granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll.
Interweaving one significant day in 1964 with a decade during the interwar period, A Perfect Explanation gets to the heart of what it is to be bound by gender, heritage and tradition, to fight, to lose, to fight again. In a world of privilege, truth remains the same; there are no heroes and villains, only people misunderstood.
Here, in the pages of this extraordinary book where the unspoken is conveyed with vivid simplicity, lies a story that will leave you reeling.
“Filled with cerebral intensity and scintillating dialogue”
Select Praise for A Perfect Explanation
“I read A Perfect Explanation between my fingers - such a haunting story, so beautifully told, about an exceptional situation that somehow goes to the heart of many truths, deceptions and lies recognisable in many families. Eleanor Anstruther has written a fascinating debut and an imaginative reconstruction of her own family history.”
“Gripping and beautifully written, this is a story about motherhood, privilege and women who simply won’t, or can’t, fit in. A brilliant read. I loved it”
“Anstruther exhumes the skeleton in her family closet with devastating skill. A captivating, chilling, deeply insightful portrait of a family torn apart by responsibilities both taken on and pushed aside”
“What a task to take on – diving into the inner world of desperately flawed and broken people and still finding a way to elicit our sympathy. Such a brave, unflinching portrait of a family”
Image credit: Rosalind Hobley
About Eleanor
Eleanor was born in London, educated at Westminster and studied History of Art at Manchester University where she was distracted from finishing her degree by a trip to India.
She was lost and found for the next twelve years, travelling through Asia, Australia, Africa and America before finally settling down to write. She began her debut novel, A Perfect Explanation, under the mentorship of Dr. Sally Cline at Anglia Ruskin, completing it a decade later by way of Arvon, Guardian Masterclass and Festival of Writing workshops.
She lives on a farm in Surrey with her twin boys.
“Eleanor Anstruther is the real deal”