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Notes on Heartbreak will probably be adored by the legions of fans of Dolly Alderton, who’s own wildly successful memoir Everything I Know About Love has recently been made into a television series. “I’m a big fan of Dolly and she’s been very supportive,” Lord says. Confronting yourself in that way raises the question of whether you think there’s a risk in writing about relationships and dating when it necessarily involves interpreting men’s behaviour! Broken heart syndrome’ can cause the heart’s left ventricle to change shape and get larger, weakening its muscle, meaning it doesn’t pump blood as well as it should Writing about break-ups can be difficult because they’re so universal, but also deeply subjective. Your world might feel as though it’s collapsing, but to the next person, it’s just another break-up. If one person knows how to write about modern relationships and heartbreak though, it’s Annie Lord, Vogue columnist, VICE writer and now author of Notes On Heartbreak, her debut book, out today. She writes about intimacy in a way that’s relatable, poetic and makes you think that maybe your own heartbreaks are really as quietly earth-shattering as you thought they were.
We talk about how it’s mainly women writing about the messy business of heartache and love and relationships, and how this kind of “confessional” narrative, where traumatic experiences are excavated, can sometimes be dismissed or sneered at. She remembers reading a review of the 1945 book On Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept about a doomed love affair, “and the guy was saying ‘oh, it’s so sentimental and rubbish and over the top’. But I love that it’s like that, and I wonder why putting lots of feeling into writing can sometimes be seen a negative thing? So yeah, I think if people look down on it for those reasons, it’s a form of snobbishness. I don’t think it’s a valid criticism.” Having said that, she thinks her next project is probably to be fiction. “My real life is too boring to get another book out of it.”Here’s one of those quotes you could print and hang on the wall of your bedroom next to that small, misplaced mirror: Men say women aren't funny and I think that's because they need a badum-bum-tish punchline; they don't see that the humour is riddled through everything we say, so that evervone's always laughing a little bit.” Annie Lord’s writing manages to remain beautiful and poignant without falling into any cliché’s or tropes. Every line felt like it could only be crafted from her perspective, in her mind, with her words — which is what I love most about my favourite authors! Knowing that this particular style of writing could only come from them. If you’ve read her articles in Vogue, this book is only an extension of her ability to find a perfect balance between colloquial relatability and profound ideas. Dark, fierce and raw, Notes on Heartbreak is a love story told in reverse, starting with a devastating and unexpected break-up. This stunning exploration of love and heartbreak from cult journalist and Vogue columnist Annie Lord, is so much more than a book about one singular break-up. It is an unflinchingly honest account of the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone who has ever nursed a broken heart.
It’s a book about the best and worst of love: the euphoric and the painful, the beautiful and the messy. It’s true that going out and dating others provides a distraction that brings with it some pain relief. It’s like an analgesic, Solpadine in human form. But just like that drug, it can get addictive and actually stops working in the same way after a while. What we actually need to do after heartbreak is to take some time getting to know ourselves in this new form, gently observing the hurt and anger we feel and the thoughts running through our minds. We need to take time to untangle ourselves from the “why” and from the narratives we create to provide an explanation that makes sense to us. Accept the complexity of people Annie Lord: I think, at that point, all I could think about was the breakup. I write in the book about how distraction from a breakup doesn’t help at all. You just end up feeling like you’re thinking about it even more. So I could only write about the breakup, basically. Writing about it really helped because it felt like I was still sitting in bed crying all day, but now it was also work. It wasn’t something I consciously thought about like, ‘I will be open about this and help people.’ But I was really surprised when loads of people were enjoying it. Because I guess when you’re in a breakup, you always think whatever you’re going through is so unique and romantic and special and different. It was nice because everyone was saying, ‘oh my god, I felt exactly the same!’ but it was also frustrating: I was thinking, ‘did you [feel the same]? Because I think I was feeling it more!’ Heartbreak and rejection can trigger activity in the same area of the brain where physical pain is activated (the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex) I learned you shouldn’t waste your time wishing parts of them away. Thinking things such as: if only they’d stopped putting so much emphasis on work; if only they’d stopped sending flirty texts to other people. There’s no point imagining it could have been different, because if that was the case, then they wouldn’t be themselves but another person entirely.Maybe I am a little too biased, but this has been healing me. It’s one of those books that unconsciously starts inhabiting all corners of your brain in such a beautiful, cathartic way. What kind of growth? “For me, the main thing is I became less reliant on other people, and stopped looking to others to bolster my sense of self,” she says. “I’m still working on that.” Has she a final word for the girl on the train, and anyone else going through their own heartbreak? “Even during the most painful times, there will be good days. You will still have fun. There will be mornings when you’ll wake up and not everything will feel like crap. Eventually, shafts of light will shine through.” But you must do this, because if you cling on too tightly to your memory of them you won’t be able to heal. Instead, you’ll be like a goldfish, continually hitting the side of its tank because its memory spans only three seconds, which is to say you’ll drunk-call them all the time, or turn up at parties you know they’re attending just so you can get their attention by laughing loudly at jokes that aren’t funny. I learned there’s no point in anyone giving you advice, because nothing will make it better. Any sentence beginning with, “When me and my ex broke up …” is infuriating. Even worse is when people criticise your ex, because you’re still in love with them and feel it now more than ever. The only thing you might be slightly receptive to is hearing, “You will be OK.” There’s something soothing in the certainty of it, even if you don’t yet fully trust it. A breakup is meant to be a sad thing, but it can be an act of kindness, too. We wanted different lives. We can now live those
But it was reading about the science of heartbreak that had the biggest impact. “Saying, ‘I’m going through a breakup’ didn’t do what I was feeling justice. It felt too small, too ordinary.” So Lord sought out studies, learning things like, “The way your breathing adjusts to another person’s when you’re together for a long time, how in grief some people’s hearts really do break, or the fact that your brain craves that person the same way you would cocaine.” I learned that at some point you have to snap out of it, tie up your bootstraps and march on. Otherwise, you’ll be one of those people who begins sentences with: “My boyfriend, I mean ex-boyfriend.” I learned that everything you are feeling, they are, too. It’s a shame you can’t talk to them about it, because you would have a lot in common. Problem is, you’d just end up sleeping together. Reeling from a broken heart, Annie Lord revisits the past - from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making. Even during the most painful times, there will be good days. You will still have fun. There will be mornings when you’ll wake up and not everything will feel like crap. Eventually, shafts of light will shine through — Annie Lord
Summary
When I read these words by Annie Lord last year, I didn't believe her. Heartbreak makes us selfish, inward-looking creatures who believe that our pain is so large, surely no one else had ever felt this way before, and surely there is no way out. I wonder how it feels for Williams, for her identity to have become so entwined with heartbreak and the very worst moments of her life. She loves it, she says. “I love that I’ve been able to help so many people, that I’ve helped make big emotions something we can feel a little more comfortable with. I absolutely believe vulnerability leads to connection and growth.” Through going deep into heartbreak she has found, she tells me, “a sense of purpose”. I think we don’t take the grief of heartbreak particularly seriously as a society, relative to how devastating it actually is. I noticed a lot of the literary references you cite in the book to express your feelings were originally written about grief as we traditionally understand it – linked to bereavement. Perhaps some will think that’s overdramatic. Do you think grief is the right framing for how a breakup feels?
Well, spoiler: there is a way out, it does end, and even though heartbreak feels so uniquely targeted and personal, it's probably one of the most universal feelings. Heartbreak ends, and love comes to find us once again. Credit to Annie Lord for capturing and sharing this feeling through her writing. An admirable feat to say the least.She found herself resenting the easy way he carried himself while she was consumed by the trivia of their domestic life Fierce, funny and raw, this unflinchingly honest exploration of heartbreak is so much more than a book about one single break-up A breakup is meant to be a sad thing, and it is. But I learned it can be an act of kindness, too. We weren’t right for each other. We wanted different lives and in letting each other go we’ve been able to let each other live those. He lives somewhere where he can eat breakfast on a balcony overlooking the sea, a place I would find boring. I go to exhibitions and take pictures of the descriptions by the pictures knowing I’ll have time and space when I get home to think about those thoughts in more detail. Annie scatters in a few references to other literary works, like bell hooks’ all about love, or Plato’s theory on love and soulmates, and The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, but nothing feels forced or clunky. The intellectual references perfectly blend in to the writing, which actually seems really difficult to achieve but Annie made it look easy. Sometimes that kind of shift in tone could dangerously fall into coming across like two different essays that have been copy and pasted together, but Annie completely avoids this, with every reference feeling useful and adding to the writing. It wasn’t just a ‘look how many clever books I’ve read and can insert here!!!’ I feel like I learnt a lot about love that I didn’t consider before.
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