Fourteen Ways of Looking

Erin Vincent is the author of Grief Girl (Penguin Random House US/Pan Macmillan AUS), which was named a New York Public Library Best Book. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Electric Literature, The Offing, Meanjin and elsewhere. She holds an MA in creative writing from the University of Technology Sydney and is currently studying for a PhD in creative writing with a focus on fragmentary literature written by women in the 21st century.

‘Fourteen Ways of Looking is a deep dive into the moment after which nothing is the same – life as afterlife, and yet it’s what we have. Vincent’s effort is both psychological and literary: trying to wrangle meaning from an event that may have none, or may hold it all. And what then, of her autonomy to make her own life? In her efforts to free herself by going back to the source of trauma, she is both Odysseus and Euridice, damned and saved. A remarkable achievement.’ – Anna Funder‘Erin Vincent’s book is magnificent, simply one of the best books I’ve read in ages. I read it in a reverie of blissed-out, horrified amazement. It will be compared to Markson, but it’s better than Markson – more formally disciplined, more cold-blooded in its self-scrutiny. I can easily imagine this book becoming a cultural touchstone like Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers or Maggie Nelson’s Bluets.’ – Sarah Manguso‘Fourteen – for Erin Vincent – is the age at which her self was formed, and this text is itself an astonishing formal experiment. The number fourteen becomes uncanny and arbitrary, both divine symbol and violent accident, as she remembers her younger self and tries to find patterns in chaos. An incredible achievement: unclassifiable, humane and haunting. I was moved to tears.’ – Clare Pollard‘Through a structure and project that holds the book to the tightest of attention, Vincent brings to this astute exploration of personal grief the world’s grief, the reader’s grief, the planet’s grief. All of time concertinas into these perfectly formed fragments that interrogate the number fourteen through the lens of how we are changed by the things of life that stop us in our tracks. However, I think the final message of Vincent’s magnificent work is the things we notice once we have been changed and the ways these act as markers to our inevitable tentative steps into the rest of life. This is an astounding work – resonant, intelligent and generous.’ – Pip Adam