Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Let Me Be Like Water
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Perry, Sarah
BIRTHDATE: 1990
WEBSITE: https://sk-perry.com/
CITY: Brixton
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 2018035457 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n2018035457 |
| HEADING: | Perry, S. K. |
| 000 | 00622nz a2200133n 450 |
| 001 | 10779190 |
| 005 | 20180618103037.0 |
| 008 | 180618n| azannaabn |n aaa |
| 010 | __ |a n 2018035457 |
| 040 | __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC |
| 053 | _0 |a PR6116.E775 |
| 100 | 1_ |a Perry, S. K. |
| 670 | __ |a Let me be like water, 2018: |b ECIP t.p. (S.K. Perry) |
| 670 | __ |a Amazon website, viewed June 18, 2018 |b (Let me be like water: About the author, S. K. Perry was longlisted for London’s Young Poet Laureate in 2013 and is the author of the poetry collection Curious Hands: 24 Hours in Soho. She lives in London and Let me be like water is her first novel) |
PERSONAL
Born 1990, in Croydon, England; has a partner.
EDUCATION:Oxford University, graduated, 2012; attended Manchester Metropolitan University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Clapton Girls Academy, London, England, resident writer; PEN International, London, global campaign manager. Also, presents writing workshops; works as a nanny; cofounder of the Great Men Project; worked as trainer and consultant for Youth for Change and Plan International. Previously, worked at a Pizza Hut and a call center.
WRITINGS
Also, author of Curious Hands: 24 Hours in Soho, a poetry collection.
SIDELIGHTS
S.K. Perry is a British writer. She holds a degree from Oxford University and has attended Manchester Metropolitan University. Perry served as a resident writer at Clapton Girls Academy and as global campaign manager at PEN International. She has also worked as a nanny and as a consultant and trainer for the nonprofit organizations, Youth for Change and Plan International. Perry cofounded the Great Men Project, which aims to help young men avoid toxic masculinity. She is the author of the poetry collection, Curious Hands: 24 Hours in Soho.
In 2018, Perry released her first novel, Let Me Be Like Water. The volume’s protagonist is Holly. She has been living in London with her boyfriend, Sam, and working as a musician. However, when Sam unexpectedly dies, Holly decides she must leave her old life behind. She cannot stand the pain of being faced with memories of Sam each day in London, so she relocates to the seaside town of Brighton. Holly clears her head by going to the shore and sitting quietly. One day, she meets a former magician named Frank, who has also experienced a devastating loss. Frank invites Holly to join his book club. When she attends the club’s meeting, Holly realizes that it is made up of others who are struggling with difficult issues. One member’s child died, while another has an eating disorder. Holly gets to know the other members of the book club and, with their support, learns how to deal with her grief over Sam’s death. She also becomes more optimistic about her future and looks forward to what she will make of her time in Brighton.
Stephanie Cross, reviewer on the London Daily Mail Online, commented: “Raw, visceral and confident enough to resist the neat ending … this is an affecting debut.” Writing on the BookPage website, Melissa Brown suggested: “In fluid, imaginative prose, Perry captures the tension and anger, the pain and guilt.” Brown added: “Though occasionally the allusions Perry reaches for feel overwrought, she keeps from veering into overly sentimentalized territory.” A Publishers Weekly critic described Let Me Be Like Water as a “moving debut” and concluded: “By the book’s satisfying conclusion, readers will feel they have grown alongside loving and resilient Holly.” “This is a quick read but by no means a light one, each sentence carefully crafted and full of emotion,” asserted a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. The same contributor called the book “a beautiful and gut-wrenching exploration of a woman defining herself.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2018, review of Let Me Be Like Water.
Publishers Weekly, June 4, 2018, review of Let Me Be Like Water, p. 30.
ONLINE
BookPage Online, https://bookpage.com/ (August 1, 2018), Melissa Brown, review of Let Me Be Like Water.
Bookseller, https://www.thebookseller.com/ (September 26, 2017), Lisa Campbell, review of Let Me Be Like Water.
London Daily Mail Online, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ (May 3, 2018), Stephanie Cross, review of Let Me Be Like Water.
S.K. Perry website, https://sk-perry.com/ (September 8, 2018).
Hello
I’m Sarah, and – amongst other things – I’m a fiction writer from Croydon. My first novel, Let Me Be Like Water, was shortlisted for the Mslexia Novel Award, and is published by Melville House UK. It will be published in the US in August this year.
For a longer version of my bio, click here.
About
I think it’s hard to know what to include when you write your own ‘about’ section. I was born in Croydon in 1990, and in Primary School I wrote an essay about being a cave woman when I grew up. As it is, I’ve had lots of jobs, though never in a cave. My first was in Pizza Hut Coulsdon, and now I’m a fiction writer.
I started out writing poetry, which I’ve been scribbling away at as long as I can remember. I was longlisted for the inaugural London’s Young Poet Laureate and was the 2014 Cityread Young Writer in Residence, which led to 24 poems about Soho (one for each hour of the day) being commissioned for a publication called Curious Hands. I qualified on the Spoken Word Education Programme (via the Creative Writing and Education MA at Goldsmiths), and spent a year as resident writer at Clapton Girls Academy, running creative writing workshops, performances, and a club; mentoring students; and teaching classes; all with a focus on emotional literacy and combatting shame. When the first draft of my novel was shortlisted for the Mslexia Prize, I met my agent Laura West, and the finished book Let Me Be Like Water was published in 2018 by Melville House. I’ve delivered creative writing workshops for PEN International in Honduras and Scotland, for the Roundhouse in Bulgaria, and all across the UK with different schools and organisations. My creative writing projects develop emotional literacy, and explore mental health, memory, and healing from violence. I’m also particularly interested in multi-lingual literature and translation, and how different languages live and are used in cities.
Outside of writing, I worked in a call centre for a year after graduating from Oxford University in 2012. During this time, I co-founded the ‘Great Men’ project with Genevieve Dawson, an initiative working with men and boys in inner city London to challenge toxic masculinity and associated behaviours using an intersectional lens and participant-led approach. I then worked for a while as a gender trainer and consultant for organisations including Plan International, Youth For Change, and others. I worked on various initiatives with survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and then spent a year at Clapton Girls. This led me to burnout, and I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, meaning I had to change my lifestyle a lot. After taking a timeout, I spent a year as the Global Campaign Manager at PEN International, a freedom of expression organisation, working with writers at risk around the world.
This last year I have been editing my novel and nannying for three lovely kids, their two dogs, their hamster, and their lizard, whilst living with my partner and a bunch of excellent friends in Brixton. I also swam a marathon (10km) down the River Dart for the wonderful My Body Back Project in September. It was very cold, but worth it.
From October I will be an AHRC-funded PhD student at Manchester Met, researching gender disruptive depictions of sex in literature, and writing my second novel. I’ll also be running a project around the articulation and vocabulary of healing, and another one exploring food in books. You can keep in the loop by following me on Twitter.
Listen to me talk about and read from my work here.
Header photo by Naomi Woddis. My pronouns are she/her.
QUOTED: "This is a quick read but by no means a light one, each sentence carefully crafted and full of emotion."
"a beautiful and gut-wrenching exploration of a woman defining herself."
Perry, S.K.: LET ME BE LIKE WATER
Kirkus Reviews.
(June 1, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Perry, S.K. LET ME BE LIKE WATER Melville House (Adult Fiction) $16.99 8, 14 ISBN: 978-1-61219-726-5
A young woman moves to the Brighton seaside to cope with her boyfriend's death in Perry's debut novel.
Holly is a 20-something musician reeling from the sudden death of her longtime boyfriend, Sam. Unable to stay in London, surrounded by the remnants of happy memories, she abruptly packs up and moves to Brighton, where she proceeds to spend a lot of time staring at the sea. While doing so she meets Frank, a retired magician with a habit of collecting broken people and who has dealt with a loss himself. Joining Frank at his next book club meeting, Holly is introduced to a new social circle filled with people who either understand her pain or empathize with it as they deal with their own issues, from loss of a child to eating disorders. As she grows closer to her new group of friends, she finds the space to begin to deal with her feelings about losing Sam and explore the possibilities of her new life in Brighton. Perry's last book was a poetry collection (Curious Hands: 24 Hours in Soho, 2015), which comes as no surprise, as the novel is told in a lyrical first-person that wrenches deep within Holly to connect with the reader. Short vignettes jump around from the present to memories of times past as Holly gets herself through, one day at a time. Though there is some discussion of the other characters' difficulties (racism, body image issues, homophobia), ultimately this is Holly's story, told from Holly's point of view, so they are only briefly touched upon. At only a little more than 200 pages, this is a quick read but by no means a light one, each sentence carefully crafted and full of emotion.
A beautiful and gut-wrenching exploration of a woman defining herself after a monumental loss. Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
1 of 3 8/12/18, 10:01 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
"Perry, S.K.: LET ME BE LIKE WATER." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2018. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540723402/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=1925f040. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540723402
QUOTED: "moving debut."
"By the book's satisfying conclusion, readers will feel they have grown alongside loving and resilient Holly."
2 of 3 8/12/18, 10:01 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Let Me Be Like Water
Publishers Weekly.
265.23 (June 4, 2018): p30. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Let Me Be Like Water
S.K. Perry. Melville House (PRH, dist.), $17.99 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-61219-726-5
Perry's moving debut follows a woman moving on after a loss by concentrating on the small but important aspects of daily life. Holly has moved to Brighton from London after the death of her boyfriend, Sam. At the beach, Holly randomly meets retired magician Frank and, although he is much older, they form a fast friendship. Holly is flooded by memories of Sam, and Frank provides Holly with a shoulder to cry on, as he can relate to her in a way that many others don't as he has also experienced the loss of a former lover. When Frank has a stroke, Holly faces a crossroads: will she refuse to get over Sam's death, or will she find a way to move on? The story unfolds over the course of a year, slowly revealing the details of Holly and Sam's relationship as she processes her loss. While sections jumping between Holly's present with Frank and past memories of Sam can be disjointing at first, by the book's satisfying conclusion, readers will feel they have grown alongside loving and resilient Holly. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Let Me Be Like Water." Publishers Weekly, 4 June 2018, p. 30. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A542242824/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=e142bfad. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A542242824
3 of 3 8/12/18, 10:01 PM
'Poetic literary debut' to Melville House UK
'Poetic literary debut' to Melville House UK
Published September 26, 2017 by Lisa Campbell
Melville House UK managing director Nikki Griffiths has bought a “poetic literary debut” about grief and loss in her first novel acquisition as m.d for the publisher.
Griffiths has bought world rights to debut Let Me Be Like Water by S K Perry from Laura West at David Higham Associates.
The novel tells the story of twenty-something Holly, who moves out of London to Brighton after the death of her boyfriend, to escape and begin to heal.
Griffiths said the tale was “markedly honest, poignant and ultimately cathartic novel which will ring true with many readers”.
“I was taken with the poetic beauty and emotional pull of the writing immediately”, she added. “It’s a book simultaneously about nothing and everything: about the humdrum yet extraordinariness of everyday life; of lost and new connections; of loneliness and friendship.
"The beautiful imagery of the sea and shore landscape muddled with the visceral grief of the main character is stunning. It brought a tear to my eye on more than one occasion, and made me laugh out loud at others with its realistic portrayals of friendship and life experiences."
Perry was longlisted for London's Young Poet Laureate in 2013 and was a resident artist at the Roundhouse in Camden and a Cityread Young Writer in Residence 2014.
She said: "I’m really inspired by the space they are making for fiction that experiments with form, and feel lucky that Holly's voice–in all its grief and healing–will have a home there."
Let Me Be Like Water will publish in May 2018.https://www.thebookseller.com/news/poetic-literary-debut-about-loss-melville-house-uk-643101
QUOTED: "In fluid, imaginative prose, Perry captures the tension and anger, the pain and guilt."
"Though occasionally the allusions Perry reaches for feel overwrought, she keeps from veering into overly sentimentalized territory."
The depths of grief are like the sea, bottomless and ever widening. Maybe that’s why the protagonist of S.K. Perry’s startling debut novel moves to Brighton after the sudden death of her boyfriend, Sam. The ebb and flow of the waves echo the push-pull of Holly’s loss, the bizarre way that grief bends and cuts. The sea is an apt metaphor.
Told from Holly’s perspective, with numbered sections that span the first year since Sam’s death, Let Me Be Like Water reads as intimately as a diary or a love letter. Raw is the best word to describe it. It’s a book to be read in the same way you’d listen to a friend who’s grieving—patiently and with care. We meet Holly as she’s just moved from London to Brighton to escape her memories of Sam. She’s an ever-shifting shape, roiling with anger and then curling in a ball, missing Sam and then wanting to be held by someone else, hurting and wanting to break things.
In fluid, imaginative prose, Perry captures the tension and anger, the pain and guilt. Meeting Frank, a man with a flair for magic and a grandfatherly care for people, is the seminal moment in Holly’s process. He introduces her to, as she puts it, “his collection of broken people” and they keep her from falling too far, from fading away altogether, though she often wants to. The gifts of their friendships are many: cooking lessons that feed her, a piano that restores her to her music, a house to live in that’s full of vitality and laughter. Though occasionally the allusions Perry reaches for feel overwrought, she keeps from veering into overly sentimentalized territory.
Holly’s confusion and emptiness stings, and the moments when she embraces life bring hope. From beginning to end, the sea buoys her. “When you sit by the water it really does feel like things will be alright.”
Medium
Let Me Be Like Water
By S.K. Perry
Melville House
$16.99
ISBN 9781612197265
Published 08/14/2018
Fiction / Debut Fiction
QUOTED: "Raw, visceral and confident enough to resist the neat ending ... this is an affecting debut."
LET ME BE LIKE WATER
LET ME BE LIKE WATER by S.K. Perry (Melville House £14.99)
+3
LET ME BE LIKE WATER by S.K. Perry (Melville House £14.99)
by S.K. Perry (Melville House £14.99)
Perry’s plot sounds familiar: grief-stricken heroine finds comfort in friendship and food. Yet partly thanks to the nervy authenticity of its narrator’s voice, this novel never feels formulaic.
The setting is Brighton, where twentysomething songwriter Holly has moved in the wake of her boyfriend Sam’s tragic death.
Following a chance encounter with retired magician, part-time baker and book-club host Frank — who, fortunately, doesn’t loom as large as you might fear — she is soon adopted by a new circle of friends, attractive Danny among them.
There’s little in the way of action, but the brevity of the numbered fragments of narrative, together with regular flashbacks to Holly and Sam’s developing romance, keep things moving along.
Raw, visceral and confident enough to resist the neat ending that beckons, this is an affecting debut.