#1: Whose hand was I holding?

In which I consider thirteen thousand names before settling on the creepiest of all

“Now”, Eleanor thought, perceiving that she was lying sideways on the bed in the darkness, holding with both hands to Theodora’s hand, holding so tight she could feel the fine bones of Theodora’s fingers, now, I will not endure this. They think to scare me. Well, they have. I am scared, but more than that, I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human being and I will take a lot from this lunatic filthy house but I will not go along with hurting a child, no I will not; I will by God get my mouth to open right now and I will yell I will I will yell “STOP IT,” she shouted, and the lights were on the way they had left them and Theodora was sitting up in bed, startled and disheveled.

“What?” Theodora was saying. “What, Nell. What?”

“God God,” Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, “God God–whose hand was I holding?”

So goes the denouement of Chapter 5 of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, one of the most chilling passages in literature. I’m sure you know the story already, but to anyone not familiar, this scene happens around two-thirds of the way into the book, after Eleanor has already experienced what can justly be described as ‘a heck of a time’. 

When I reached that part, I was already utterly captivated by the writing. The mood of the book builds very subtly from a frayed nervousness to full-on terror and is utterly gripping throughout. We follow Eleanor’s full integration, in painful increments, into Hill House, along with its other temporary inhabitants, and, it would be fair to say, it’s not a super-great time for anyone (except the reader, perhaps).

The reason I settled on naming this site ‘Whose Hand’ is because it is a good-enough cipher for all the questions I have about the kind of art I’m interested in. (I should clarify that ‘whose’, in the way I intend it, does not necessarily refer to some personified entity; it could as easily be read as ‘what’, but ‘what’ is not a very good name for a newsletter.) For instance, how do we explain the gap between ‘reality’ and non-reality in work that deals with the supernatural, the folkloric, the archaic? (Without even getting into the increasingly vague, broad and concerning definitions of ‘reality’ that exist in 2023.) 

With regard to the creation of writing and art, the name is an equally helpful container for some of the questions I have about what we choose to make and put out into the world. Whose hand propels us forward? Whose holds us back? Are they one and the same? And what forces must we consider when we try to make a living from our art? Whose hand will stop us? Whose might guide us?

I’m looking forward to exploring these questions as they pertain to some of my favourite things, like folk horror, supernatural literature, the work of Joanna Newsom, and much more. I hope you’ll join me on these quests, and I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments on the online version of the post.

In terms of support for this publication: thank you for being here! I’ve written a whole thing about Substack’s subscription model here, on my ‘About’ page (if you’re reading this in email, I’d encourage you to hop over to the website via that link to have a read and see what you think). I’ve also written there about some of the reasons why supporting artists financially is nice, if you’re able to. (Not everyone is, and I get that - you are welcome here however you subscribe.)

That might be enough for this first issue! I really hope you enjoyed reading the above, and that you find some juicy new things to watch/read/listen to below, and, thank you again for subscribing.

Until next time,

Kellee

For transparency, I am part of Bookshop.org’s UK and US Affiliates schemes. If I link to a book which you then buy, I may receive a small percentage of the sale. I’ll also add each book I mention on Whose Hand to my stores, so the more I write, the longer the list. (You can find my Whose Hand Bookshop.org stores here (UK) and here (US) Thank you!)

I recently finished - and loved - Desperate Characters (US edition) by Paula Fox. It takes place over one weekend in the life of a middle-class, liberal couple in 1970s Brooklyn, slowly revealing the cracks in their marriage and within their own psyches. It’s 153 pages of dazzling insight - there were several sentences that struck like hammer blows and made me pause to catch my breath.

After years of having her on my TBR pile, I finally picked up Mary Gaitskill’s Two Girls, Fat and Thin (UK edition, US edition) last month, and found myself racing through its pages, utterly compelled by the writing and the delicate handling of the subject matter (content warnings for everything). I was initially drawn to the book because of its title: I’m always intrigued by representations of fatness in art. I’ll resist a full review here because I’m going to write more fully on this book in future, but for now I will say that the fact that it was published in 1991, decades prior to the mainstream’s awareness of fatphobia and fat activism (a movement which is, today, still evidently very much in its infancy) - Gaitskill did a great job of relating an experience of fatness. The two women are drawn together by interactions with the work of a thinly disguised Ayn Rand-like figure, ‘Anna Granite’; the book then takes alternate chapters to describe each of the women’s horrific early lives, and the effects of the abuse they suffered as they each move into adulthood.

Unless specified, the podcasts below should be available on your preferred app; links are just for reference.

If Books Could Kill Every episode of this podcast is great, but I’m specifically recommending here the latest, entitled ‘Conservatives vs Pride Month’. It gives an excellent and hilarious account of libertarians going ape when their capitalist values conflict with some of their more bigoted beliefs.

The Retrievals The newest stand-alone season of the ‘Serial’ franchise, The Retrievals looks into shocking events that unfolded at a Yale University fertility clinic between 2020-21. The first episode in particular looks at how women’s pain is dismissed in medical settings, and how conditioned we are to believe that the only possible reason for suffering is that our bodies are the problem.

I’ve been listening to two versions of Stephen Sondheim’s song Move On this week (this one, and this one), from the musical Sunday in the Park with George. Every time I hear it, whomever it’s being sung by, its beauty reveals more of itself. It’s a song about art and friendship; about one friend seeing the artist in another, and encouraging them to keep moving forward, because they know what making art means to that person. It’s a duet, and definitely benefits from being viewed because the acting in both versions is beautiful, but either way, it’s a powerful piece.

Joanna Newsom’s second album, Ys. I have probably listened to this album several hundred times since its release in 2004, but lately, have been paying particular attention to the song Sawdust and Diamonds, and how it relates to the rest of the album, and to songs from her later albums.

A Mighty Wind I’ve been choosing a lot of comfort rewatches lately, and one of my favourites is Christopher Guest’s 2003 mockumentary about the world of folk music. It’s just an absolute treat to the ears and brain. All the bands are brilliant, but when I realised that there is a pitiful and perfectly observed thread throughout all of the The Folksmen’s songs (they sing very boastfully and seemingly knowingly about things they very declaratively haven’t actually done - a nod to some of the wackier characters from 1960s folk scene, of which I’m a huge fan), they won me over. (Eternal shout-out to Mitch & Mickey though, of course - and get well soon, Mitch.) 

We Are The Best Lukas Moodysson’s 2013 coming-of-age drama about three punk girls in 1980s Stockholm is one of the most uplifting films I’ve seen for a long time. The three leads are so believable and charming and sweary, they’re enough to bring out the punk in any viewer.

I mentioned comfort rewatches above, and my TV viewing is no exception:

Spaced My favourite sitcom of all time follows Daisy and Tim, two flatmates trying to start their artistic careers in late-1990s/early-2000s London, while signing-on, getting into ridiculous scrapes and referencing every interesting bit of pop culture from the 1950s onwards. Every re-watch reveals an issue that fills one’s stomach with bees, of course, but this is as close to an unproblematic a TV rewatch I’ve done in a while.

Good Omens Season 1 Another viewing of this delight before Season 2 starts on 28th July. After seeing this photograph of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett from, it seems very clear who the characters are styled after (if only sartorially).