Base Notes: The Scents of a Life

OBSERVER NONFICTION PICK FOR 2025  
 
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 
 
"Ingenious. A story of family in all its fractures and complexity... Its symphonic olfactory narration has a sharpness and depth of recollection which remains as vivid as their first experiencing" — ★★★★★ The Telegraph
 
"Candid and compelling" — The Guardian
 
"Wistful, sad and funny ... top notes of humour, insouciance and bravery lift the story into art" — The Spectator
 
"Working-class life pinned to the page" — The Herald
 
"Poignant and grimly hilarious" — DAZED
 
Available in hardback and kindle format
Audiobook narrated by Christine Bottomley for Audible 
Published: 13 February 2025 (White Rabbit / Orion) 
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9781399608602
Order Link: https://geni.us/BaseNotes