Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't

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I'd highly recommend Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't, especially if you're after a dark and intriguing collection of short stories which make you think. A stand-up performer since the age of 14, Long has long been known for her golden retriever persona. Here we have a range of offbeat and punchy vignettes which each offer a 'slice of life' insight into the various characters' lives and human experiences. If I did have one criticism it would be that I often struggled to differentiate the character voices from Josie's own voice, but given that I love her that really wasn't too much of a struggle for me.

Long had written stories as a child, hammering them out on her dad’s word processor, printing them and carrying them around in a ring binder, later taking them to the pub to impress boys, but that was as far as her literary ambitions went. With everything from teenage friendship to parenthood to leaving London, this debut collection is perfect for fans of Miranda July, Emma Jane Unsworth and Dolly Alderton. It's heavy, and it's raw, but it's also a beautifully written reminder that everyone has their own shit to deal with, whether they choose to share it or not. Also I was able to take the stories into places that are not humorous and just stay there, because with stand up you maybe have a minute where you can be sincere but then I feel like you always have to puncture it, undermine yourself, so there’s never the space to sit in something sad. Best surely is the piece regarding a charged attack on the upper middle classes, from two young women determined to get their slice.

All told, much of this is reasonably readable (thanks, Lady Margaret, Oxford) but at the same time some stories just seemed to be taking me nowhere other than the skip button. Cocker argues that by understanding – or at least investigating – the beautiful mystery of a bird almost always in flight, we can better comprehend our own place in the world. And later I would carry around this black ring binder full of my stories, like someone might think ‘oh, this 12-year-old has got things to say, oh great she’s got it with her’, but I never finished them. I couldn't tell if there was a thread between the stories and I might have benefited from an introduction to set my expectations. Its 16 stories offer rich, breathlessly paced narratives of sexual obsession or late-night parenting or annoyance with an egg-obsessed lockdown-era neighbourhood WhatsApp group, each told from the perspective of a different person.

Josie's writing is everything I love about her stand-up: sharp and smart, hilarious and incisive, infused with love for the world and the complicated people who live in it.

It seem all of the stories have similar themes: anxiety, pettiness, obsequious and obsession - unwanted but unresolved characters in human nature - are all heavily present in each story. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks. When my friend David O’Doherty and I first started posting videos on YouTube, he would get comments saying, ‘Love the song David! There is a point in one story, “Volunteering”, which is wryly askance about Long’s now double career. My favorites of the bunch are: Gallus, What You Could Have Done and A Photo Taken at a Small-Town Museum.

Like Carver, Long is brilliant at writing her characters' interactions with the humdrum material world around them: its everyday objects; grubbiness, wear and tear; the existential despair that, for most of us, these are the only tools we have to excavate life's meanings. When I was 24, there was a comedy forum that devoted hundreds of pages to being incredibly rude about me, my body, and who I was,” she says.I really hope this isn't the end of Josie Long's writing career and that there's more where this came from!