A review by julia_may
A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in a Skip by Alexander Masters

4.0

I compulsively read it in one fell swoop and could not put it down. Made me think of Grey Gardens - a lot of similar themes here. Also those 7-Up documentary series. An anonymous diarist's 148 diaries find themselves in the hands of academics and subsequently their biographer friend, who then reads the diaries in an attempt to understand who the diarist was and also identify them. Because the diaries span several decades, you can trace the changes in the writer's life, dreams changing to disappointments, obsessive crushes turning to something darker, ambitions defeated. A few twists along the way make this a pretty compelling read and just when I thought I knew how it would end, turned out I was wrong. Like the characters in Grey Gardens, the diarist is not an altogether likeable personality, but eccentric and often relatable. There is an interesting discussion towards the end about the nature of happiness (or contentedness) being such that you often need to stop actively striving for it, to get it. Food for thought.