Base Notes: The Scents of a Life
A bedroom dreamer with a headful of Warhol, Adelle Stripe’s formative years were ones of daytime drinking and religious fervour, frustrated mothers and reckless daughters, desire, ambition and the pursuit of creativity. Told through a prism of vintage perfumes, and played out in vivid detail with startling clarity and colour, Base Notes chronicles an unbridled Northern England of the late 20th century already fading from view.
With a keen eye for the absurd, an ear cocked to eavesdropped conversations and a nose that finds perfume wherever it goes, this tragicomic tale of working-class womanhood is no clichéd story of redemption or escape, but instead a bleakly funny yet unflinching memoir of dead-end jobs, lost weekends, brief encounters and those wild, forgotten characters who slip through the cracks.
Infused with acerbic observations and unexpected poignancy, Base Notes sees Adelle Stripe boldly laying her lived experience on the page, creating literature from a life less ordinary.
"A fragrant and fabulous episodic memoir" — Editor's Choice, The Bookseller
“Adelle's writing has a rare verve, giving vivid evocations of times, places and scents. It's got both style and warmth and made me cry. I loved this rock and roll spirit coming out of small town Yorkshire” — Amy Liptrot
“They're here - the scents of a life - in all their heady, olfactory intensity. But so too, in its joyous, messy, difficult and gloriously rich reality, is the sense of a life. From ice-rinks to chatlines, leather factories to delivery calves on a Yorkshire farm, Adelle Stripe is alive to love and light, loss and gain, the dark and comic. A marvel of specificity, it's compelling and deeply evocative.” — Wendy Erskine
"As the whiff of a past love’s perfume takes part of me back to a party in 1979, Adelle’s memoir is further proof that through scent time travel is indeed possible for us mortals … scratch and sniff Proust" — George Shaw
“It is powerful and moving to see your own life and the lives of so many you know echoed in Stripe's tender memories… And somehow, through the magic of [her] writing, you laugh out loud even more than you cry. This is a beautiful book.” ― Anna Wood
"An addictive - frequently devastating - memoir of escape, immolation and reinvention, never better than when observing the various traps of working-class womanhood or being labelled 'a strong northern voice'... told with her now trademark restraint, humour and empathy. A brilliant and singular book." ― Fergal Kinney
Available in hardback and kindle format
Audiobook narrated by Christine Bottomley for Audible
Published: 13 February 2025 (White Rabbit / Orion)
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9781399608602
Pre-order Link: https://geni.us/BaseNotes