Ashleigh Young’s Evocative Prose is Irresistible

“New Zealander Ashleigh Young’s Can You Tolerate This? is an extremely charming essay collection, comprised mainly of snapshots of Young’s life from childhood onwards; walking across gravel roads hand in hand with an imaginary Paul McCartney, starting to write, falling in love, discovering yoga, struggling with shyness, experiencing grief,” Jane Graham writes in a review for the UK’s Big Issue.

“She can be funny, self-effacing and romantic, but most impressive are her extraordinary powers of observation, as if God hot-wired a microscope and a movie camera into her brain. With the most elegant, evocative prose, she invites us to move in with her and her family, and seems so wise about so many things I could hardly believe she was real. A wonderful book, an irresistible woman.”

Can You Tolerate This? won the prize for best book of non-fiction at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Young was born in 1983 in Te Kuiti.

Original article by Jane Graham, The Big Issue, September 14, 2018.