If I free-associate around the word Mummy, what comes up? Smoking. Showily crossed legs. Good ankles. Laughter. Cocktail parties. Gin and It. A Ewbank squeaking over the carpet. Lay the table for me—here, knives and forks. Toast and dripping, beans and bacon, eat the fat up it’s good for you, do…
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
