A woman comes of age on the internet in a memoir that swings between funny and profound
Harriet the Spy is a 1964 childrens’ book about a little girl who snoops relentlessly on her neighbours. Harriet Gibsone did the same thing when she was young. Now in her late 30s, she still shares with the fictional Harriet a powerful imagination and endless fascination with others. Harriet the Spy was banned in a number of American schools; apparently morally upright people didn’t approve of watchful girls trying to figure out the world on their own terms. I love these characters, nurturing as they do some feeling of control in a world where they do not have any.
Is This OK? is a memoir, full of finely told stories that were once secrets existing only in the writer’s mind; addictions, obsessions, weirdnesses. Gibsone came of age at the same time as the internet, her own development shaped by its strange currents. She chooses episodes from her life and makes some of them funny – laugh-out-loud-on-the-train funny; some of them are frightening and sad. Many illuminate a bigger truth about living at this peculiar time and in the grey area between the online and offline worlds. That is, of course, where many of us spend hours each day, without fully realising it, even as researchers warn us of the negative impact on self-esteem and mental health.
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