Provocations: Two Sisters – Blake Morrison in conversation with Rachel Cooke

Join us for a series of evening events at the Freud Museum titled Provocations, or Difficult Conversations in the Home of the Talking Cure curated by Rachel Cooke. In-house only.

In tonight’s event Blake Morrison Blake Morrison discussing his latest book, Two Sisters, with Rachel Cooke.

“Beautiful, affecting, erudite” Susie Orbach

Thirty years after the publication of his classic memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, Blake Morrison gives us the story of his sister and half-sister, both of whom struggled to survive the fall-out of an upbringing in which a parental secret was in plain sight, but not fully revealed until, perhaps, it was too late. A reckoning of sorts, Two Sisters comes with no easy answers to the difficult questions it asks. How much is a person allowed to blame on their parents in adulthood? How to explain the fact that while one sibling can escape childhood unscathed, another may be fatally wounded by it? Why did Gill spend thirty years as an alcoholic? And why did Josie take her own life?

SPEAKERS

Blake Morrison is an acclaimed poet, novelist and journalist, whose work is widely considered to have changed the landscape of literary memoir. His non-fiction books include the ground-breaking And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and was also made into a film starring Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth; As If (1997), about the murder of the toddler James Bulger in 1993; and a memoir of his mother, Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). His poetry includes the collections Dark Glasses (1984), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award. He is a regular literary critic for the Guardian and the London Review of Books.

Rachel Cooke is an award-winning journalist. A writer and columnist at the Observer, she is also the television critic of the New Statesman. Her essays are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3, most recently the series On Disappointment. Her book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties, is published by Virago. Her new book, Kitchen Person, is published by W&N. The Virago Book of Friendship, of which she is editor, will be published later this year.

TICKETS

SPECIAL OFFER

Provocations: Two Sisters – Blake Morrison in conversation with Rachel Cooke – 28 February 

Provocations: Mortal Secrets – Frank Tallis in conversation with Samira Ahmed – 6 March 

Provocations: A Thread of Violence – Mark O’Connell in conversation with Dr Carine Minne – 14 March

Buy the series of 3 talks for the price of 2. BOOK NOW >>

Tickets include a welcome drink, book signing, plus special after-hours viewing of the Museum.

Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming.

Tickets are NON-REFUNDABLE.

The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular public income.