How regrettable it is that magazines stop ~ Rest-In-Sweet-Peace The White Review! ‘Tuscan Leather’ by Laura Grace Ford is signature-ly bleak. I listened to Ayşegül Savaş on the difficulty of writing fiction that’s happy-without-smug the other day and was heartened it might be possibe; but Laura Grace Ford’s work is often unhappy and * so * far from smug and this too is welcome. “KARA” and “FRANK” make up ‘Tuscan Leather’ as connected narratives. In “KARA”, Kara copes with an abusive boyfriend situation drifting “skittish” East London “the air is cinder toffee and carbon” amid “thirty-story ravines and ziggurat hotels, new expressways and conference centres” and “UK Garage, decelerated Jungle”. Laura Grace Ford is Princess of Ambience I think and also really good at doing getting ready: “I rubbed a circle in the mirror, raced through the ritual: orange lipstick, copper eyeshadow, black kohl”. ‘Tuscan Leather’ is meandery, spatially (weaving evictions demolitions new-builds) and temporally (bad memories everywhere kindled by “chanced-upon street” or “the scent of Tuscan Leather on a stranger’s skin”). Endurance glimmers with sum1 named “Idris”: “our relationship kept us going through the winter, it staved off the dark”. <3. We learn Frank’s someone Kara, who wears a Puffa jacket, once was a care-worker for. Sumptuous writing, melodic through dank dereliction. Sparklers and the frankinsence. Frank, after Kara’s wondered if he’s okay wherever he is, in “FRANK” then reveries Kara gorgeously. Laura Grace Ford’s illustrations are there too – paintings, biro-drawings, watery blue ink. She really gets it <3.
First published in The White Review No. 30, 2021 and to read online here
A Personal Anthology 