Book review: ‘Base Notes’ by Adelle Stripe

Adelle Stripe’s episodic memoir, Base Notes, describes her northern working-class upbringing and her attempts to carve out a life different from the ones envisaged for her. It is tender, frank and funny, and a damn fine read.

Adopting the same trick used by Simon Armitage in his memoir All Points North, Stripe writes in the second person singular, which somehow makes her tales more engaging and personal. She tells of her religiously devout, lighthouse-cleaning grandmother and her more approachable and affectionate grandfather; her ambitious, larger than life hairdresser mother; her hard-working farm-worker father; her friendships; occasional encounters with dickheads; jobs with little or no career-development opportunities; and her gradual burgeoning into the person she is today.

Base Notes has a recurring olfactory theme, each chapter referring to a contemporary perfume or aftershave. The book takes its title from a term used by perfumers to describe an underlying scent to which additional layers are added—a clever metaphor for a memoir like this. Towards the end of the book, Stripe has a go at making her own perfume, Lune Rose, a fragrance-swatch of which was thoughtfully tucked inside my signed first edition.

I very much enjoyed this book. Recommended.

Disclosure: I live near Adelle Stripe and have met her a number of times. We also follow each other on social media