The 5-year hunt for a book
“You can’t not do it because it’s so core to who you are.” This is what my partner said to me as I pulled on my boots to set off to spend a Saturday in the National Library of Scotland. By it he means write and research. That Saturday I planned to spend the day with Dreamers Awake, a catalogue which was already sold out back when I visited the White Cube exhibition in 2017. The exhibition opened me up to Kiki Smith, Julia Curtis, and Linder; I’ve never been the same again. I want a record of it, rather than these memories which are growing fainter and fainter, but the book has been cruelly out of print ever since.
My desperate hunt for a copy to call my own has included:
Demanding rare bookshops to write down my contact details so that in the case it comes into stock, I’m the first person to know.
Periodic pleas on social media.
Setting up eBay listing alerts.
For some reason it never occurred to me to read it in a reference library until now. It’s in pristine condition, totally neglected in storage for all these years, when it could’ve been at home, with me. The excitement I felt to have this book in my hands was unparalleled; so momentous that I was reluctant to dive in. In the end I only skimmed it and instead read another less important book from cover to cover. This is so me: I love the chase, the delayed gratification and the accompanying self-inflicted torture. And when the book I’ve spent years pining over is in my hands to have and to hold, I worry it will fall short of my expectations.
I am going to visit the book again today and confront its pages face on. There are several reasons as to why it’s hugely sentimental to me. For one, I’ve been floating for five years, and by that, I mean not writing or researching. Reserving Dreamers Awake marks a turn, prioritising what is core to me and closing the door on the distractions which diminish who I am.
My dear friend once asked me: “If you had one day left on this earth, and could only spend it with one person, who would it be?” God, this is a hard question. Do you pick someone who loves you for who you are now, or do you pick someone from your past with whom you have unresolved business but is now a stranger? And if you pick the latter, what if they turn up unwillingly or the day doesn’t live up to your otherworldly expectations? This question has since prompted me to consider where this last day would be spent. Can I pick Dreamers Awake, please? Can the curators please re-stage the exhibition and preserve it, pickled in 2017?