We Could Be Heroes

excerpt from my debut novel 'Mrs Death Misses Death'

Bowie died. Prince died. Leonard Cohen died.

And everyone that made you feel beautiful and young is going, one by one and there is nothing you can do about it. Everyone who knew you when you were beautiful and young will all fade away. One by one. Nobody will be around to remember the young you any more. And your heroes will disappear, they will stop being there and then you will hear that they died and then you will die a little bit too. You probably haven’t seen them for years. Nor listened to their music nor read their books nor watched their movies. But there was a time you had their poster on your wall, a shrine in your heart, they were the soundtrack to the good times, your glory days. You might go to their funeral. You might go to a bash in the local pub in their honour. This is how it will go. Your heroes die one by one.

You find you begin to be more sentimental, nostalgic, you reminisce and live in the glorious colours of the past, weeping for your heroes, as the future grows more papery, and time burns easy as tissue. The older you get the better you were, and the better they were. Music is a time machine to before: There’s that song, remember that song? Music takes you back. And the most ordinary objects have value: a hair clip in an old make-up bag will take you back twenty years, you didn’t even wear it much, but once you did and there you are again.

Photographs are precious. Look at me. Look at before. Look what we did. Look what we wore. Look how we are now. Look. Look. Flashback. Look. Look. Look. Your body aches sometimes. You need glasses. You have a round belly now. You forget the names of things. You aren’t as quick. You drop the ball.

Bowie is dead. Prince died. Leonard Cohen died. George Michael died. Jock Scot died. Howard Marks died. Gil Scott-Heron. Aretha Franklin. Maya Angelou. Toni Morrison. Bill Withers. Little Richard. Carrie Fisher. Princess Leia. What is going on? Who else will we lose? And who will be next? This isn’t a joke. Circle the wagons, please protect Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Dolly Parton, Keith Richards, Stevie Wonder . . . And you sit and stare into the internet at the cult of public grief, performative grief. Every day, another star falls, another someone who meant something special to someone, who meant something special to a whole group of someones.

Some deaths mean everything to everyone. You read the obituaries and how brave and admirable these heroes were. How beautiful she once was. He donated so much of his wealth to the needy. You knew they were good people. Just look at the kindness in their eyes! Look at this twentieth-century photograph. Look how twentieth century we all once were. We were all so twentieth century! And what a life. What a legend. Read the truth: how they were rejected, how they were once considered failures, thrown on the heap, how they fought to survive, how they overcame life’s obstacles. Once they were nobody and then they were somebody. And then they were old hat and then they were dead. And then they were someone special for all of you to remember. Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Bob Marley worn on your t-shirts forever! They blazed a trail, they smashed the system, they changed the game. You wish we all had that much courage. You wish people would say all this to the living when they are here – show your appreciation to your living heroes now, nice and loud, so they can hear you. Celebrate the living! Why are you waiting to outpour your love only when people die?

I just hope new heroes are being born this year . . .

Your heroes are here! Your heroes are all already here, darling. I see your heroes, I follow them, I watch them, they keep going and never stop. Your heroes are never giving up on their dreams. I see heroes at the food bank, your heroes are at homeless shelters, they take food to people sleeping in doorways. Your heroes are itinerant and broke, with no funding or arts grants. Your heroes are in Calais and Dunkirk, they wait by the shores of Mediterranean seas and volunteer to help the capsized boats and refugees. Your heroes are on the borders. Your heroes are down in Soho donating and distributing food and blankets. Your heroes are working overtime in the crumbling NHS departments, your heroes are your doctors and nurses, your teachers and volunteers, people taking phone calls at the Samaritans and talking people down from the edge.

Your heroes march for human rights and the future of the planet. Your heroes are millions of school children protesting for the climate strike. Your heroes write graffiti and poetry. Your heroes are everywhere, they walk among us. Your heroes are waking up every day, skint and underpaid and busking it, your heroes are making work, beautiful books and music and art that you cannot see or find or read as is drowned out by all the propaganda and noise and adverts and the fear-mongering and the performative cruelty of politicians. It is your job, your only job, to seek out and support and nurture heroes, this is all your responsibility. We can all do our part in the chain, to help others to help others, to help the others who help the others who inspire and help the others.

Find the others!

You are losing your libraries, museums, galleries, independent bookshops, pubs and music venues, so the beautiful spaces where thinkers and writers and artists could meet and share work and gather and blossom and dream are being erased. The survival of the hero is up to you all now. It is important, now more than ever, to fight for all of this, to fight for your rights, for your freedoms, for your art, poetry and music. Because you all need to be heroes, to step up, to speak up, to support each other. It is all about kindness, and you need the doers and the creators. You must pay attention to the ones who listen and hear and do and can and will and share. And to the people of science and art, books and music, otherwise what is the actual point of all of this? What was the point? Why are you all here if not for that? You are here for love. To share the love.

When hate is rising, then love can only rise higher.

We stare deeply now into the charcoals of winter and watch the last flames lick the chimney. The fires leave the sky and dance into the everything. All the warmth and all the joy is boiled in a soup of memory, we stir the good stuff from the bottom of the pot and hold the ladle up, drink, we say, look at all the good chunks of goodness, take in your share of good times, good music, good books, good food, good laughter, good people, be grateful for the good stuff, life and death, we say, drink.

*excerpt from ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’ by Salena Godden, published 2021 by Canongate Books, out now in hardback, ebook, paperback and audiobook. This film clip is taken from a performance recorded at home in lockdown.

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Hello my dears,

It is very Novemberry here today. I thought I would share this chapter this Monday morning. I’ve been thinking about this particular chapter in Mrs Death Misses Death a lot lately, I have been thinking about celebrity worship and fame and money and influence. I’ve been watching the US elections and the circus of celebrity endorsements of genocide and greed and how terrifying and violent and shameless it all is.

I know I am not alone: I wish for a better world, we must do better, dream bigger.

Here in my little room I’m close to the completion of the new draft of my new novel which I hope to submit this week. The new book ‘The Life of Life’ is set in the Mrs Death Universe, this new story is written from the perspective of Death’s sister Life. As I work on the ending, I keep wondering how and if anything has changed from the writing of the debut book and this book. I find I am returning to an analysis and examination of our perceptions of the good and the bad, the villain and the hero and the worth of human life, not just out there but inside here. How can we all not be changed by the horror we are witnessing daily?

This Heroes chapter was written in another era, it was written before the pandemic, before the 2020’s, we have lost so much and so many since this book was published. How hard it is to keep hope burning bright. How we must keep faith and an optimism that everything will be alright, that truth and belief and our courage and resilience and protests can and will turn the tide, that love will win, that we can somehow, save Love, save Hope, save Life. That we can and that we must.

Ok I must get offline, but I just want to say thank you for all of your messages, comments and kind words about my Substack posts so far. Thank you for following, subscribing and sharing my writing. It is a wonderful community. There are nearly 250 of us, thank you for joining me here. Some of you have been writing to offer payment, if it is ok, I would like to keep it all free a little longer and then switch on an option to take donations and subscriptions in the winter. Ok back to editing, I think my editor and agent might read this, and they wait patiently for the latest manuscript.

Whatever the result of any elections, remember the old saying, the government always win, and the profiteers of elections and the arms trade and the architects of war are all the same and they are having a very lucrative time of it whatever the cost and collateral damage of people and planet.

Please take care out there my lovelies. The veil is thin, the nights draw in, the wine is dark and the stars are cold, share your big heart, good soup and warm fire. BIGlove, sgxx

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Poetry. Books. Gigs. Festivals.

November 11:

Cold War Steve Book Launch, Bristol, with Max Porter & Jeremy Deller

November 18:

‘My Life In Beer’ Anthology Book Launch, The Social, London

November 20: 

Newham Festival Of Stories with Irenosen Okoje & Luan Goldie

November 22:

Radical Book Fair, Roxy, Edinburgh, Scotland

November 23 + 24:

Push The Boat Out Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland  

November 27:

Stop The War Fundraiser, Seven Dials Club, London

November 28:

Poetry Club, Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, London with Ella Frears

December 6:

Toast Poetry, Norwich Playhouse with Caleb Femi