
What Doesn’t Kill Us reflects on the revolutionary feminist movements around Leeds in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It follows Liz Seeley, a police constable working to find a serial murderer whose victims are exclusively female; Seeley herself has an abusive boyfriend at home, and is surrounded by sexist men at her workplace.
She then encounters the women of Cleopatra Street, who are aiming to start a movement for violence against women. Subsequently moving into Cleopatra Street, Liz then meets Charmaine Moxom, a young Black artist facing gender and racial discrimination alike.
As the killer takes more victims, the pressure builds for him to be found. This ultimately results in fear and violence from women all over Leeds, with Liz in a constant battle: whether to side with her friends or keep up her professionalism as a police officer.
Ajay Close has combined the compelling story of the birth of a revolutionary feminist movement and the severity of what it was to be a woman in the UK of past decades. What Doesn’t Kill Us is an eye-opening read about womanhood and how some of the struggles of nearly 50 years ago are still present now.
What Doesn’t Kill Us, Ajay Close (Saraband)
Price: £10.99. Info: here
words CHLOE MULLIS