John Crace 

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran – digested read

John Crace keeps raging hormones IN CONTROL to render a young woman's journey into music journo stardom in a fab 700 words
  
  

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran digested read Matt Blease illustration
Illustration: Matt Blease Photograph: Matt Blease

It's 1990 and I am lying in bed next to my brother. He is six. I am 14. I need to MASTURBATE!!! My dad is downstairs pretending to be a rock star and trying to avoid the bloke from the council who wants to cut his benefits. "Come down, Johanna," he shouts. "Not before I've wanked myself off with Mum's hairbrush," I yell. HELP!!! My mum comes into the bedroom making one of those faces that Caitlin Moran will later become known for. "You'll give yourself nits if you use my brush. Try using the Mum deodorant you shoplifted earlier. At least you will smell nice afterwards."

There is a knock on the door. It's the health visitor. "How is your VAGINA?" she asks. OMG she only thinks it's me that had the twins and not my mum!!! "Fuck the lot of you," I storm out. "I'M FED UP WITH BEING FAT WITH 38DD TITS AND LIVING IN WOLVERHAMPTON WITH A BROKEN OLD COMPUTER WITH THE CAPITAL LETTERS KEY STUCK TO ON."

"What are you going to do?" my brother Krissi asked.

"First I'm going to read The Bell Jar and then I'm going to go to London to become a rock journalist for the DM&E, which isn't to be confused with the NME."

"Fucking hell," said Krissi. "You don't think that sounds a bit too much like a straightforward novelisation of How to Be a Woman?"

"You've no idea how hard it is to write a book. IT IS LITERALLY THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD. Why can't you be a bit more supportive and say, like, REALLY REALLY NICE THINGS LIKE MY FRIENDS HAVE. I HATE BEING 14 AND FAT!!!"

"You've already said that..."

"Look, Caitlin," said her editor, rushing up to north London with several bottles of vodka and an aromatherapist. "It's fine. It really doesn't matter if a lot of it's the same as before. The world loves you and will buy whatever you write."

So I'm only wearing my Doc Martens in the DM&E offices. I've changed my name to Dolly Wilde and I've been asked to do an interview with John Kite. I mean, THE JOHN KITE. I rush off to the toilets to have A GIANT WANK, though now I'm feeling a bit anxious that I haven't yet had a PROPER FUCK.

John Kite is literally like the best, kindest bloke I've ever met. We drink LOADS together and my interview reads a bit like a love letter. But I don't mind, because I love him. Except now I'm back in Wolverhampton and no one from the DM&E has rung because the phone has been cut off and my dad's benefits have been cut and I'm feeling terrible that it might be because of something I said.

Just as I am having another wank, the phone does ring and it's DM&E saying I can do some more reviews but must try not to write like such a fan. This is FAB. I'm now going to be the meanest, mother-fuckering muso journalist in London.

"Do you want a fuck?" someone asks. "Sure," I reply, because, like, 1) why not, and 2) it's time for one of my trademark lists.

WOW. WOW. Talk about a MASSIVE COCK. How is a girl meant to sit on that? Where's Mum's hairbrush when I need it? So now I'm going out with this posh writer who doesn't really love me and all of a sudden I find I'm writing a decent, funny, tender book in which the volume and the capital letters have been turned down.

"ENOUGH OF THAT," says Caitlin. "There needs to be more me, me, me. Look, girls, let me interrupt the narrative in case you have missed my message. It's OK to be whoever you are. Sometimes we build the wrong woman and then you rebuild her. Just don't take too many drugs or self-harm and then even if you were born poor you too can be famous."

"Yes," says Johanna. "The key to life is to always be very, very nice to everyone, especially your well-connected friends, and be very, very loud and enthusiastic. AND DON'T FORGET TO ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS USE CAPITALS!!!"

Digested read, digested: How to build a brand.

 

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