"My Good Bright Wolf" by Sarah Moss

An audio book - memoir.

She writes that she's trying to be truthful except when she's hiding identities. A voice interrupts when it suspects that there's a deviation from the truth. She's the daughter of Owl (American) and Jumbley Girl. She's the sister of Angel Boy. She was a late reader and felt fat - the bullying was worst when she was 9. She thinks about how the books that she repeatedly read as a child ("Swallows and Amazons", "Little Women", "Little House of the Prairie", "Pilgrims Progress", etc) affected her, giving them a feminist interpretation - she mentioned some of them in her PhD. She's interested in the author/heroine's attitude to food, and the author's approach to truth. She recalls reading "The Bell Jar".

During covid, now a prof with teenage kids, she moves the family to Ireland. She over-exercises, under-eats. By the time she goes to A&E she's on the edge of organ failure. She's 46. Still she refuses sugar, following the advice of the "men of science". She has trouble distinguishing between "care" and "control". She finds she can't write fiction while fasting. She's told to prioritize recovery by giving up work, but she goes on book tours etc - they're not a problem. Her husband and kids do European hikes for holidays. Water is an issue more than food. That becomes a source of arguments too.

She reads about Dorothy Wordsworth, and how she balanced her creative work with domestic chores. She reads about Mary Wollstonecraft and how she coped with male attitudes to female thinkers. She assesses whether these female characters are like 1st or 2nd wave feminists.

She talks about her suicidal thoughts (Mary Wollstonecraft tried, Virginia Woolfe succeeded). On a walk she sees a wolf. Was it a female?