A Memoir of My Former Self

I’ll admit: I approached this with trepidation. Posthumous memoirs can feel like cash-ins, but *A Memoir of My Former Self* is the opposite—it’s Mantel *unplugged*, a defiant refusal to be packaged. The audiobook’s biggest gamble—seven narrators—pays off spectacularly, mostly. Anne Enright’s delivery of the opening essay on writing is so precise it feels like Mantel herself is speaking, while Nicholas Pearson’s gravelly tone grounds the darker reflections on pain and mortality. The standout? Lydia Leonard’s rendering of ‘How to Be Ill,’ where Mantel’s gallows humor about endometriosis lands like a gut-punch. If there’s a misstep, it’s Bill Hamilton’s sections; his pacing occasionally flattens Mantel’s razor-sharp asides, making them feel more lectury than lived-in. The production’s sparseness is a revelation. No music, no sound effects—just the words and the weight they carry. That said, the abrupt shifts between narrators (and thus, tones) might frustrate listeners who prefer immersion over fragmentation. I found it fitting, though: Mantel’s mind *was* fragmented, by pain and by genius. The essay on her childhood in Derbyshire, read by Aurora Dawson-Hunte, is worth the price alone—a masterclass in how to turn memory into something both mythic and visceral. My one critique? At 16 hours, the pacing drags in the middle, particularly during the more academic lectures. But when it soars (like Sarah Waters’ delivery of the final piece on ‘the art of dying’), it’s transcendent. This isn’t an audiobook to *like*—it’s one to *experience*, preferably with a pen in hand and a pause button at the ready.