It’s that time when publishers flood bookshops with celebrity memoirs. We all know a sleb autobiography is rarely the work of the celebrity, but the ghostwriter is not the only anonymous voice at work – an indexer can play a quietly subversive part too.
One of my favourite index moments is in Shaun Ryder’s autobiography (Twisting My Melon – of course!), towards the end of the S’s: ‘sinus problems, 2; splitting up with Denise, 63; splitting up with Felicia, 320; splitting up with Oriole, 295; splitting up with Trish, 246-7; sunburnt in Valencia, 141-2; teeth, 327-8; thyroid problem, 320, 326; UFOs seen, 33-4.’
Teeth, UFOs, hypochondria, and failed relationships on a doomed, never-learn loop. Of course, it is part of the nature of an index – the arbitrariness of alphabetical order – to bring together curious juxtapositions. Items and events separated by time are forced to rub along together.
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