Book review: The Edge of Everything by Lottie Williams

Julie Brominicks 

‘Occasionally, devil’s bit scabious, and yellow potentilla, poke through the edge of the path, tiny and cheerful like nursery children let out to play after the rain’, writes Lottie Williams, describing flowers on the Welsh coast near Pendine. An analogy to make you smile if ever there was one, and one that I, in my frequent coastal forays, won’t forget, for it embodies the spirit of this book. 

Descriptions are vivid; thunder ‘timpanies’. A garden chafer beetle ‘rivals the varnished top’ of Williams’ Mamgu’s mahogany dresser. An owl calls ‘long and shrill, like a squeaky door hinge,’ while Afon Tywi runs ‘both bronze and clear, welcoming the sun onto its surface like tiny diamonds cruising a highway.’ But there is more, because beneath such life is depth. 

This slim bright volume of poetry and nature-celebrating prose is written in tribute to Lottie Williams’ recently-passed father. ‘I need to collect our life together and hold it briefly and safely in one place like a time capsule,’ is her declared intention. ‘Absolutely everyone is someone else’s universe but it all goes by so fast’. 

The fact that she has achieved this so quickly; a single year after her father’s death, suggests we are in the company of an extraordinary woman. When my own Dad was dying twelve years ago, I told him I’d write a book about Shropshire in his memory. I haven’t even begun, and I know I’m not alone in failing such an objective. 

Yet here we have an assembly of deftly written vignettes in which memories of Williams’ childhood in Yorkshire and the Fens are interwoven with observations of her young family in present-day Wales, the occasional poem (On Solfach Beach being particularly gripping), and reflective moments as her children’s dependence on her decreases. 

We are privileged that Williams chooses to share with us, such precious moments with her father. Whether peeling chestnuts for his children whilst watching the rugby, carving a carrot to replace Lottie’s dead goldfish, or dancing with her as a baby and again as a bride, here was a gentle and beloved hero, who was as devoted to his family as they were to him. 

Equally tender are the observations of Lottie’s own children as they paddle, swish sticks, and gorge on blackberries, even as she acknowledges that although she loves them with every ounce of her being, ‘whilst motherhood can be wonderful, it can also be tirelessly repetitive and not easy.’ 

Sharing her children’s wonder at the little things has fine-tuned her attentiveness, while bereavement has intensified her awareness of how fleeting their infancy is. These crystal-clear accounts are as delicate and vivid as the shells and leaves that she collects for them in a memory box. We sense Williams both grieving and being enormously grateful and glad for something not quite yet gone; the ‘peace at the top’ of the Malhamdale waterfall, before ‘the water plunges down.’ 

Snatched time on her own grants her opportunity to stretch intellectually. Her reflections range from astrology and eagle reintroductions, to ecological fragility. She considers ‘The Great Dying’ 250 million years ago, when extreme heat and poisoned air ‘choked almost all plants and animals,’ and draws subtle parallels with our own planetary destruction. Death is a constant presence. 

But so is life. ‘The tree knows it is dying’ she writes, finding one suffering but sending up new shoots, on the banks of Afon Tywi. ‘But death is not final. Energy just finds a new home.’ 

Negotiating with grief is bitterly difficult. To do so with such fierce positivity is courageous. To do so, and find time to write a book, as a working mother of four young children, is remarkable. Lottie Williams is a force to be reckoned with. A talented force, empowered and enabled by love for her family, friends, and this world.

For all her positivity, Williams does not brush death aside, but is bold enough to acknowledge it. When not parenting, writing, or teaching, she is a Sgwennu Well (Writing Well) practitioner who has trained in and now coaches, writing for well-being. My untrained eyes assume we find some techniques here (for example, switching to ‘you’ rather than ‘I’, granting distance, when the loss is too raw).

A beach here, a snatched moment there; in some ways The Edge of Everything presents an everyman experience. Parents love their children and then die; some of us are lucky enough to mourn their passing. It is both small and grand, in scope and aspiration. The pain and joy, both personal and universal. It’s a book many of us intend to write, though so very few do. That Lottie Williams has done so, feels like a gift to her own family and to readers too, as she coaches us to see not just that there is light in the dark, but that there is dark and there is light and there is life. That we must pay attention and cherish each last splash of it.

Credit to the judges of the Nigel Jenkins Literary Award and to the H’mm Foundation (publication of this book being the prize) for recognizing in The Edge of Everything, that this might be an ordinary story but at the same time there is no such thing. That the ordinary is extraordinary. 

Perhaps grief has potential to make poets of us all. It intensifies our observation. Enables us to stare into an empty coffee cup, and consider the void it contains. It is testament to Lottie Williams’ extraordinary determination that she chooses to gaze not at the void, but at flowers. 

Lottie Williams and Julie Brominicks will be in conversation about this book and their writing journeys in Penrallt Bookshop, Machynlleth, 18 November. Tickets are available here. 

The Edge of Everything is published by The H’mm Foundation and is available to buy from all good bookshops.