Fane presents Abigail Bergstrom in conversation with Otegha Uwagba to mark the publication of What a Shame, February 9th at 6.30pm.
Dark, funny, and immediately intimate, What a Shame is an emotionally engulfing account of a woman in search of peace. Join its author, Abigail Bergstrom, for this virtual event as she shares the inspiration behind her debut novel and discusses its themes of inherited trauma and the prickly heat of female shame in our modern world. Abigail will also explore how her background of over a decade working in publishing informed her approach to writing a novel.
She doesn’t want to admit it, but there’s something wrong with Mathilda Manning. It’s not just that she’s been wearing the same pair of black dungarees for three months straight, or that she can’t seem to stop running, or that she’s once again sleeping with the deeply inappropriate Freddie.
Cast into the grief of a brutal break up and the death of her father, she’s not moving on. Her friends are adamant she needs a helping hand, flinging her towards various spiritual practices in a quest for healing. But buried memories won’t stay that way forever, and it’s time Mathilda faces up to her past.
Reminiscent of Emma Jane Unsworth and the raw vulnerability of I May Destroy You, What a Shame offers a powerful reading experience like no other – this event will resonate with any woman who has tackled the beauty and the pain of having to come to terms with herself.