From award-winning comedian and writer Katy Wix comes Delicacy – a different kind of memoir from an astonishing new voice. Twenty-one snapshots of a life – some staccato, raw and shocking, some expansive, meditative, and profound, underpinned with moments of startling humour that shatter the darkness – all beginning with a single memory. A memory of cake.
The sickly royal icing marked the moment Katy found her voice. The madeira cake was the sun her group therapy sessions orbited. The ‘missing cake’ from a lost holiday has never let go. The Bara brith eaten in hospital after a life-altering car crash was as tough as the metal that hit her. The supermarket rock cake was where she ‘practised wanting’.
Shocking, raw, darkly funny and deeply humane, Katy Wix’s exploration of trauma, grief, addiction, love, loss, memory and hope is truly unforgettable.
Review
Books about grief, addiction, loss, hope and memory are not easy reads, but they can be both inspiring and healing for the reader as well as the author. When reading these books a symbiotic relationship often develops between the writer and the reader, in this case Katy Dix’s words creating shared bound with those that are struggling with such issues themselves and for those for whom this will all be part of their future. Because we can all by reading this book come to understand the complex human relationship with death and our own mental health.
There is humour, often dark, which ripples through the story and allows the reader to connect both with the author and her story, using it as a coping mechanism, as they come to terms with the authors experiences and their reactions to them. So often the trauma that Katy Wix talks about, get buried and hidden from view and it shouldn’t as Delicacy shows us. Even more moving is that by sharing her story, she helps us as readers to deal with our own trauma, simply by allowing us to know, that we are not alone. That there is a path through it all, even if that path is littered with dips and turns, with time and help, we can recover.
I was deeply moved by the author’s honesty, it is both brave and inspiring to lay bare your pain to the world. Anyone that has experienced issues with their mental health, experienced loss and grief will understand how liberating it can be to share the struggle, to find closure and move on. Importantly she writes of her experiences in a way that makes it all feel accessible. There is no attempt to sugar coat her feelings or reactions to events and the humour is cathartic and healing.
You can purchase this book from Amazon and Waterstones
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