IM

“It was a cosy and convenient set-up and we were lucky that life had worked out so neatly for all of us. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling all weekend that Andy and I were playing the part of a couple. Avi and Andy would talk about football and jokingly complain about how we, their female partners, ‘say one thing but always mean another!’ Jane

“‘I think fertility doctors are like hairdressers’, she said. ‘They act like everything’s a disaster, because all they do is think about hair all day. But really - split ends are not a disaster.”

Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“The Siberian desert has nothing on this: next-door neighbour’s garden gnome entangled in cobwebs; bare, spindly branches outstretched into the flat, grey sky; empty washing lines; abandoned patio furniture; jars once used as ashtrays in the summer now filled with black rainwater and fag butts.”

Good Material, Dolly Alderton

“When she puts the radio on and clatters about in the kitchen, it is a sound that makes me suspect she has started her day without me, rather than inviting me to start it with her.”

Good Material, Dolly Alderton

“I look out of the window on to the dark streets dotted with drunks - shouting and crying and tripping over and calling people they shouldn’t call and eating greasy food. Every good night out hinges on discontent. This is the theory I’ve come to. When I go out with Avi and the boys, I notice that they’re all too satisfied with their lives at home

“Because of your death, I got so obsessed that I read everything I could find, watched every documentary, and listened to every song ever written about femicide in Mexico.”

Reservoir Bitches, Dahlia de la Cerda

“I got obsessed with femicide just like the time I got so obsessed with The Lord of the Rings that I even learned Elvish.”

Reservoir Bitches, Dahlia de la Cerda

“she turned into a chainsaw: she tore through every hunk of morning wood in sight.”

Reservoir Bitches, Dahlia de la Cerda

“When they found my body, no one called me Julia. As if a little plastic card with a photo on it meant more than a whole lifetime of transformations. A trannie was found naked and brutally beaten in a vacant lot. Man dressed as a woman beaten to death. On Sunday morning, the dead body of a transexual was found in an abandoned building. Extra!