Learning To Think
My friend Tracy King's memoir 'Learning To Think' is released on the 7th of March in the UK and the 9th of April in the US. It's such a brilliant book that’s getting great reviews. I’m so incredibly happy for her!
I met Tracy in 2009 via the Skeptic 'community'. I'd been interested in the Skeptic stuff for several years, though I'd never attended any conferences or events. I was not only interested in the skeptic pushback against religion in public policy and law, but was also very interested in things like debunking 'alternative medicine' and the study of cults and cult-thinking. I was so excited there were others into this stuff as well…
In 2008 in the UK, Simon Singh - a physicist and science writer - was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for an article Singh wrote criticising the practice. I was shocked and outraged that this organisation was trying to use the law to silence a science writer WHO WASN'T WRONG. The whole skeptic and science communication 'community' in the UK got involved and joined up with political campaigners, journalists and groups Sense About Science, English PEN, Index on Censorship, to work on reforming the libel laws in the UK, which had been used by all kinds of bastards to silence their critics. I felt very strongly about this and decided to eschew my wariness about 'joining a group' and... well... join this group...
I was days away from giving birth in May 2009 when I waddled into a Skeptics in the Pub meeting about Simon's case, which started the UK's libel reform campaign. Everyone who was anyone in the UK skeptic community was there. I met loads of people that night - many who were new to me, some who I'd been following online. Tracy was there, though I can't remember if we met, because I probably met 100 people that night. And my feet were swollen and I felt like I was going to burst. And probably desperately had to pee for most of it.
In October 2009, The Amazing Meeting London was held for the first time and pretty much all of the UK skeptics and a lot of people involved in libel reform were going. I was friends with JREF's president at the time, Phil Plait. He wanted to introduce me to the woman organising TAM London: Tracy King. I immediately loved her.
Since then Tracy has been my go to person for 'sanity checks'. If I'm unsure about my thinking on something, I'll ask her where I'm going wrong. She cuts through the bullshit to find the logic. She is not only clear thinking and accepts no nonsense, but she's also funny, loyal and truly kind-hearted. A gem of a person.
She ended up as this shrewd, sober, meticulous thinker not through an education in the best schools and universities that her highly educated, middle class family sent her to, nope. She did it herself. She - as you will read in her book - didn't really even go to school after the age of 12. She grew up in poverty on a council estate on the outskirts of Birmingham with her loving and supportive family. Though her father had drinking issues and her mother had mental health issues, they both instilled intellectual curiosity and a love of creative expression in their kids. But things slowly started to fray... and then fall apart... and then everything collapsed.
Here's the Penguin blurb:
"When you have nothing, you cling to whatever gives you hope.
Put yourself in Tracy King's shoes. Growing up in an ordinary council estate outside Birmingham; a house filled with creativity, curiosity and love, but marked by her father's alcoholism and her mother's agoraphobia.
By the time she turns twelve her father has been killed, her sister taken into care and her mother ensnared by the promises of born-again Christianity.
This isn't the stuff of cult documentaries; this is the story of an ordinary family trapped in a broken system. It's a story that could happen to anyone without the tools to transform their circumstances. And it's the story of how Tracy found her way out.
A shocking, inspiring and ultimately hopeful memoir that holds up a mirror to the everyday realities of living in poverty, it is also a testament to the power of books and to learning to question our world."
The other thing that connects Tracy and me is that we are both autodidacts - though I did graduate from high school, I left school and left home (and my country and continent) at 17. Just like Tracy, I had to make it on my own without higher education and the friendships and networks that come from that. I think that's a big reason why we get on so well. We know what the other has had to do in order to get to where we are. I have huge respect for her. We both exist in a world where we feel like outsiders (her for class reasons, me for being a filthy foreigner reasons), but have found a way to fit in. Also, we both find clarity and stability in logic, which has been a structure in the chaos for both of us.
Her book is brilliantly written in a omg-I-can't-put-it-down way and she has something vitally important to tell the world. From the review in The Times:
"It’s an astonishing tale, well structured and punchily told. [Her father's] death triggers a search for the truth that takes Tracy in some surprising directions, including, more than 30 years later, meeting two of the boys who were implicated in his demise.
These encounters are profoundly moving and add further layers of nuance to her intellectual quest.
Ultimately, this is a book about learning to live with uncertainty. It’s about facing and exorcising demons without the consolations of superstition. “I hope,” she says at the end, “you, too, find your candle in the dark.”
Her gift to us is that she has found and shared hers."
I'd love it, if you'd read it.
So excited for this book!