The Julie Myerson scandal is fascinating me

Much as it is fascinating the rest of reader-y Britain right now, in a car crash sort of way. But perhaps I am taking it more personally than some, for two reasons:

- as a former nightmare teenager - really nightmare, I know you don’t believe it because now I just seem to be a cute little  monkey, but it is true - so much of what she write rings true to what happened in my family, and I feel a lot of sympathy for the fact that she felt the need to write about it. But I think she should have waited ten years to publish it, until her son was a bit more sorted out. I also think that they are unnecessarily scapegoating skunk rather than, perhaps, acknowledging that their son has some underlying mental health issues - depression, perhaps?  - that went untreated, leading to his addiction.

- the question of where writers have to drawn the line vis a vis their use of the people close to them in their work is particularly close to my heart, because I am that kind of writer. Out of fear of hurting people, the anecdotes in my first book that have any kind of negative connotation only referred to people who I am no longer in touch with…but I wonder if this actually  made the book less true than it could have been. But I am also glad that I don’t have to worry, particularly, about affecting any of my existing friendships or relationships with my family.