Little Scratch

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I did like the use of side by side columns in Little Scratch, not least to differentiate and match up two sides of a conversation.

Left to right: Eve Ponsonby, Eleanor Henderson, Morónkẹ́ Akinọlá and Ragevan Asan in Watson’s little scratch at the Hampstead theatre, March 2021. Photograph: Robert Day

Maybe people who don’t overthink or find themselves distracted by obsessive-compulsive thoughts may find parts of this book jarring, but I found them comforting and illuminating. The experimental comes gloriously to life, with a performance that has an element of music about it’ The Times

Some angry men have also been in touch. A typical response is anger at the passage when the narrator says: The authorial figure in the book is actually telegraphed for those that read it properly. She is “R” (naturally!) The message of the story is important but you will have to work hard and be focused to receive it and follow along. The title itself is a tongue-in-cheek description of what the character experiences. A scratch is something very minor, inconsequential and nothing life-altering. Life moves on and she’s supposed to carry on with her life as if nothing happened yet in actuality what she experiences and the trauma that follows is giant, deep and all consuming. Miriam Battye makes her Hampstead debut. Recent credits include Scenes With Girls at the Royal Court, Big Small Lost Found Things at Bristol Old Vic and All Your Gold at Theatre Royal Plymouth. I have to stop myself, I know I will stop myself so my body scratches faster, gets in more moves in less time, if you’re going to make me tear away so soon I better get my pound’s

In a lot of the stream-of-consciousness style books I’ve read, especially those following characters similarly dealing with trauma and/or spiralling thoughts, I have felt a coldness and detachment that stops me fully loving the experience. Watson manages to capture wry observations and to communicate the struggles of living in the aftermath of trauma, whilst also bringing so much warmth and hope to her work. not a clear head but a blank head, making me question my capacity to think at all (even though I know that questioning my capacity to think is thinking in itself but a different sort and not a sort I’m interested in much) I know I was reading a book on the train this morning, in fact I finished it a few minutes before we pulled into Liverpool Street and yet here I am, searching desperately for any hint of a book I might’ve encountered Undercutting the darkness are glimpses of wry, well-observed humour enhanced by the visual wordplay: the confused negotiation of an office tea-round, an insufferable poetry reading and the dark pleasure of reading a disgruntled Tripadvisor review. Having written a piece several years ago that mentioned my own experience of sexual assault, inevitably that becomes a lead for interviewers. It helps justify the conclusion that the novel is confessional. That disturbs me. It helps justify bringing up the topic, and pushing me for more. That disturbs me too. Anything I say now adds to the mound – it’s extra context, to help understand my intentions, even if I explicitly say: there is no connection here. I just finished little scratch, which I should have finished the same day I started it, but I found my interest starting to lag half way through. I think it was a smart, interesting style, but for me, if it had been shorter it would have been more impactful.

Even as I wrote the review it was tempting to refer to elements of the plot that fit closely what I understand of the author’s life and experiences – and the one time when the book diverts to a WhatsApp group chat (otherwise the narrator leaves them unread, instead just communicating with her Mum and her Him) it is for a brief discussion on female auto-fiction.Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion… daring and completely readable.’ Colin Barrett The thoughts are a mixture of the prosaic, describing the sights, sounds and feelings of a working day sequentially, and deeper undercurrents which gradually come to dominate the book , as the reasons for the narrator's unease around her book are clarified. Overall I thought this was an excellent book treating an important if difficult subject –#MeToo and sexual assault in the workplace. An image! not my spoon! not my phone! (although I can see that too, an emoji of a pig, which distracts me for a second but oh no I am not letting this go, yes an image, a book