Little Anchors

<p>Lorraine Mariner’s slant humour and eye for the peculiarities of human interactions have won her comparisons to Stevie Smith, that distinctly English poetic sensibility. In <i>Little Anchors</i>, her third collection, Mariner looks below the surface of the ‘quintessential English family’, discovering hidden heritages and family secrets and a new understanding of what it means to belong.<br><br>She uncovers the Greek heritage that her late father had carefully concealed – like many migrants of his generation – reclaiming both his name and extended family as she travels to get to know them. Alongside is the story of a beloved Irish grandmother, whose institutional and migrant experiences intersect with the troubling ‘herstories’ of twentieth-century Irish culture.<br><br>A transatlantic love affair brings a new rhyme with her family’s migrations to the US, while London works its magic and draws these strands of identity together again. George Michael, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, <i>Jane Eyre</i> and the longueurs of lockdown also make appearances.<br><br><b>Lorraine Mariner’s absorbing new collection is about the little anchors that hold us to people and places and keep us from going adrift.</b></p>