' I have the absolute utmost respect for soap opera actors now. They work harder than any actor I know in any other medium. And they don't get very much approbation for it'.Joan Collins.
Rachel North, about her book, 2007, just below. Italics and enlargements her own. We provide the link to her original post here.
" ''I couldn't stop reading because it's
brilliantly written and a gripping narrative.''
Bob Tyrer, Sunday Times
''a brilliant memoir about surviving 7/7''
Jon Ronson, author & broadcaster
''In the terror of July 7th Rachel North found her own capacity for courage and discovered that she had extraordinary gifts as a writer,
not the least of which is her powerful honesty''
Fergal Keane, BBC, author & broadcaster "
You can buy the book 'Out of the Tunnel' from Amazon. Every review left on Amazon is a five star. This has never happened before in the history of English literature. Rachel and her violent Internet henchmen intimidate and abuse people on the Internet and no one dares leave anything else. The comments box attached to this post is reserved for actual opinions on Rachel's book.
34 comments:
I gave her a five star review and it deserved it. Really not sure where this site is going - are you claiming she suffered a head injury and is therefore a liar? Or that her book isn't very good? Your claims are inconsistent.
its absolutely awful. Put it this way if anyone came to the door telling me a story like that i'd probably call emergency mental health!
The book is crap
We agree that Rachel takes the approach that 7/7 is the only thing ever to have ocurred on the planet outside her accused's rape trial and her wedding.
Theatrical and overdramatic drivel of the worst and most unpleasant type.
Could you extend my comment.
A marvellous work meritorious of the status of William Shakespeare proving that the 7/7 bombings are simply the only interesting dilemmas to have ever occurred on this planet. Amazon could create a six star rating uniquely for Ms North.
(I gave her book one star and my comment was deleted from Amazon after about three or four days. She then wrote a nasty indsipid post accusing random people of ganging up against her it really was quite frightening, I had simply put what I thought was true)
!!!Its just GHASTLY!
The book is a flop, awash with colourless self pity. One woman's over commitment to a failing target and very poor project management. She avoids explaining how her job vanished from beneath her but one can guess.
I gave it five stars- it was a good read at the time. Not much of it is believable but why quibble. I like a witless drama and a glass of mulled wine.
I thought it was quite good in places and very bad in others. I was embarrassed for her the way she went for anatomical detail about the boy she accuses of raping her. She should have taken advice from friends before publishing like that.
The North from the North does not take advice and everyone who tried gently to persuade her not to write her book was beaten over the head with a kitchen pan.
How can you write such cynical comments so calmly?
It is GHASTLY!! Its the manifestation of the woman in white at midnight!!
'Dramatic and traumatic, Rachel North skilfully and grippingly entwines the trauma of a vicious rape attack in 2002 and the unimaginable horror of being a passenger in the first carriage of the underground train that exploded at Kings Cross on 7 July 2005.'
http://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/2121/Out_of_the_Tunnel-Rachel_North.html
That's just it. How can you entwine two such experiences and stay credible?
Found a blitz survivor's comments on Rachel's muck and muddle
"I was one of those many people who went through the London blitz and experienced much fear as bombs, then doodlebugs and then V2 rockets came our way.
A few of my school friends were hurt or killed and my father, who was too old to be called up, had the job of assessing the cost of damage to buildings the morning after an air-raid.
Wardens and emergency service personnel and others often had to help in recovering bodies.
There was no "after care" or counselling in those days and I don't know anyone who was "traumatised" or suffered any chronic mental problem. We just "got on with life".
I have often thought that counselling was a self-fulfilling problem, when what I have termed "hand-wringing" was a symptom that should disappear of it's own volition.
I suppose that a few people might be traumatised, but in the majority of cases it seems to be a symptom that is expected of them and therefore psychologically induced by society."
Or if your Rachel, induced by yourself in a "fit of the confabulations".
be fair. Rachels confabulous fits and mental difficulties are erratic and sporadic..
Now I will emigrate to Spain..nice weather for it.. :)
On Friday Sept 7 2007 Charlotte asked:
What percentage of profits from this woman's book is going towards the survivors of 7/7? And I don't mean the survivors groups she belongs to (KCU I think) as I would not trust the monies would not simply stay in her pocket. I cannot locate this information on or in the book therefore think I may be looking in the wrong place...
I find it very distasteful thst someone would try and forge a career out of this event and make money from it. There were people who suffered horrendous injuries while I understand North only received a scratch on the wrist (obviously not her writing hand).
" 'Dramatic and traumatic, Rachel North skilfully and grippingly entwines the trauma of a vicious rape attack in 2002 and the unimaginable horror of being a passenger in the first carriage of the underground train that exploded at Kings Cross on 7 July 2005.'
http://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/2121/Out_of_the_Tunnel-Rachel_North.html
That's just it. How can you entwine two such experiences and stay credible?"
The sort of drivel described is well managed by anti psychotic drugs.
18 comments so far. That's twice as many as the number of copies actually sold!
Did you guys actually read this self-obsessed drivel? Did you learn anything that she hadn't already stated ad nauseum amongst the myriad of blogs, forums and news websites?
This woman is truly a legend in her own lunchtime.
'The sort of drivel described is well managed by anti psychotic drugs.'
This is an over the top comment. No repeats please.
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2008/04/if-you-were-thinking-of-buying-my-book.html
I was not. One thought.
Could Rachel have been instrumental in her publisher's liquidation?
It is an unusual circumstance.
http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack/2007/07/out-of-the-tunn.html
Rachel's steadfastness is an example to us all. You can see this in her blog. She's a remarkable woman. What she suffered in July 2005 was a blot on her landscape; she chose not to be a lifetime victim, (all too easy for the poor darling, had she taken that route) but a person who suddenly had a cause, meaning and a bloody good writing voice to support her.
I've not read her book, but I have read her blog. Rachel's story might not be one to behold in some eyes, but those who have this opinion are missing out on the experience of a lifetime in reading. Cynicism is a foggy mirror.
Rachel, in her blog, has always been alive and ready for life: aware and astute; ready to see behind the issues we face (where she has had to experience them full on); survived and not looked back as "pure victim". Rachel lives life.
I imagine Rachel's words and life make a testament to us all and good luck to her! Out of God-knows-what-dire-need can arise an example to us all and Rachel defines that. She has suffered, even before 7-7, but she knows how to make a life afterwards.
I wish her all the best for this book; she deserves it! And in life also. Having read the blog from Rachel, I suspect this will be more than a "good read".
We deserve it too. Victims can fight back, steadfast in their views. Rachel is not a prime example here, but THE EXAMPLE.
Posted by:crimeficreader | July 06, 2007 at 03:47 AM
Dear Scott and commenters.
Many thanks for your very kind words. Re. PR - It's a pain about This Morning but never mind. Am doing BBC News 24 tomorrow and a round of stuff next week, and the Mail are doing 3 pages on it tomorrow, which is cool, and it has jumped up to 1,750 in amazon page ranks which is nifty as the PR has only just got going.
The comments about my writing style mean a lot to me.
I hope the book finds an interested audience and that it helps people understand PTSD - and thanks to TFP for making it possible.
Posted by:Rachel | July 06, 2007 at 07:05 PM
Yes Rachel, because you aren't on TV enough, are you?
Posted by:Anon | July 08, 2007 at 12:08 PM
Always difficult to take any criticism seriously when posted anonymously. Perhaps it is a fault of mine but whenever I read any such comments I just think 'wanker'.
Posted by:Scott Pack | July 08, 2007 at 02:43 PM
Yes, anon, I failed the Big Brother auditions back in 2002, so naturally getting raped and tortured and bombed leapt to mind as the obvious route to stardom.
Posted by:Rachel | July 08, 2007 at 08:35 PM
I don't know about her Big Brother auditions but all evidence suggests that she was neither tortured nor attacked nor harmed by a bomb at all so she can't keep pedalling that line much longer.
It is shocking that a woman without a scar on her can claim she was tortured and sell her story.
"We deserve it too. Victims can fight back, steadfast in their views. Rachel is not a prime example here, but THE EXAMPLE".
Nothing has ever happened to anyone else
What an arse kisser
I read the Amazon reviews and trhought like wow, this must be some really amazing book, but this review came across as suspicious.
"An astonishing debut, 1 Aug 2007
By JP Gass (France & UK) - See all my reviews
A beautiful, powerful, heart-wrenching memoir of humanity, love, terror, and recovery. Devastatingly truthful and exquisitely written; what a talent, what a woman, what an amazing book. My cheeks were wet with tears but I just could not stop reading and reading. I don't think I have an ounce of emotion left in me after that roller coaster ride. Massively recommended. "
Nothings that good. Is that one of Rachel's men? If you look carefully about half her book reviews are written by suspicious or totally wierd looking authors.
"A book I dreaded reading, and yet one I gladly absorbed., 31 Jul 2007
By D. Hart (London) - See all my reviews
First, this is a profoundly positive book. Second, this has moments of pure poetry. Not journalism, not autobiography - but literature, quite brilliantly written.
There are passages that are terribly hard. Some of which (like the bomb memory) are so intensely conveyed, startingly, horribly clear. There are many chunks of the book in which the author describes the psychological aftershock, that are tough, because the candour is difficult for those, like me, who have never experienced such a terrible thing - but the unreal, awful situation is experienced vicariously, and so vividly. The sense of "guilt" and the feeling for those alive and dead is painfully recounted. Although no sympathy is asked, we empathise throughout, and moral dilemmas are, to me at least, very clear - the best that could be done, was done.
This is not a "misery-lit" book. Far from it.
What remains is simply, great writing, and profound insights. Thoughts that are articulated out of horror - into a peaceful, accepting life - ideas that should inform us all. Perhaps the book might make the reader reconsider how life should be lived...
I can't remember the last book I read so keenly. This one I ripped through over two nights huddled under my duvet, and glad for the wholly positive spirit that concludes it. "
Well that one's mighty strange there is no blog that asks for sympathy more than Rachel from North London.
29 July 2008 02:14
You are not exactly asked for sympathy by Rachel North. You are held at gunpoint.
It looks to me like Rachael wrote a lot of her reviews herself. Note the ones that seem astounded at how marvellous and amazing it is and then burst into tears. That is a sure sign to watch out watch out theres Rachael about.
I wouldn't be so sure. A whole mass of salivating bloggers and webloggers all desperate to get on the North bandwagon turn out that B.S. every day. E.G.
http://www.barder.com/ephems/580
"Few people are better qualified than Rachel, who has herself had the wrenching personal experience of terrorist violence at first hand, to make these comments with their biting irony, made infinitely more effective by being couched in almost flawless verse (flawless but for just two very slightly dodgy rhymes). And that's not all (as the television commercials say): the verses are packed with dozens of highly relevant hyperlinks to original texts and reports, making the whole thing not just a wonderful read (even better declaimed aloud), but also a mini-compendium of quotations in support of the indictment. It's lovely stuff, and should be chanted by Conference delegates in Manchester this week before and after The Leader's speech. Don't miss it:"
This was about her rhyme about Tony Blair
"We won't talk of causes, we'll talk of effects.
We'll whip up a horror of radical sects.
(We don't want to talk about why they are vexed)
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
We'll tell you we're listening, but we don't want to hear.
We'll trash civil liberties, ramp up the fear,
(And, if after the PM's job, go up a gear)
The Rules of the Game Have Changed
You can march in your millions, protest if you dare -
As long as you don't go near Parliament Square
(The cries of your anger might be heard by us there).
And the Rules of the Game Have Changed
If we think you're a bomber, Osama's recruit
There's no time for questions, Jean Charles, we'll just shoot,
And the ''misinformed'' officers won't get the boot.
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
We don't condone torture - 'least, not on our lands
For ''unlawful combatants'' / ''terrorist bands''
Though some say rendition leaves blood on our hands,
But the Rules of the Game Have Changed.
Your sons and your daughters must be under your gaze
Lest their young minds be fuddled by martyrdom's haze.
(Extremism's causes? Debate's been erased.)
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
We're watching and logging you all, can't you see?
It's for your own good, it will keep you all free.
The cameras, wiretaps, biometric ID...
The Rules of the Game Have Changed
You think this sounds scary? You're starting to cry?
Armageddon is coming! The End Times are nigh!
We're ready for Rapture, to heaven-ward fly...
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
So bring on the horror, the fear and alarm.
We won't rest til infidels all buy the farm,
God willing. Bush said so. 'Twil work like a charm!...
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
And you think I'm joking? And well so you might.
You won't give up liberty without a fight?
Check our track record - we'll soon see who's right.
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
RN 2006
UPDATE: Readers are joining in! Check the comments for more verses contributed by Pete in Dunbar! And please feel free to add your own, suggest links, set it to music... ( possibly stirringly martial?).
Maybe they can all sing it at the Labour Conference."
Or maybe not. Maybe they'd be slightly embarrassed. The Tories aren't singing it either. " Biting irony."
This is interesting. In her first journal she says she didn't even hear that the bomb was in her carriage until days after the event.
This completely conflicts with all her other accounts. You should do a timeline of her slowly developing BS.
"SATURDAY 9 JULY 2005 1031 BST
Yesterday was a weird day.
I felt sick all day, which I think was the smoke inhalation and the news overload.
Friends called and texted and several beautiful bunches of flowers arrived. I love flowers.
I felt overwhelmed by support and love.
Also felt hugely freaked out as I felt I could so nearly have died.
Couldn't stop watching news.
The rolling BBC and ITV news started saying the bomb at King's Cross was on the first carriage by the double doors going towards Russell Square - near where I had been standing.
When the blast went off I fell to the left into a heap of people, by the left-hand set of doors.
It was too dark to see what was smashed.
We escaped through the driver's cab and walked to Russell Square but the news said most people escaped out the back and walked to King's Cross.
When I started hearing the bomb was in my carriage, I flipped. I started pacing about.
I phoned the BBC to ask them where they got this information from, then I phoned the anti-terrorist hotline and gave a more detailed witness statement.
I was alternately pounding with anger and adrenalin, and having mini-flashbacks, then feeling falling-over-tired.
I drank several whiskies.
My sister came to visit, and I was so glad to see her, and we ate some pizza with my boyfriend - suddenly I was starving after eating barely anything for 24 hours.
I just had endless cups of tea.
I watched a programme about orphaned baby elephants on the BBC and briefly felt normal delight.
I tried to sleep and kept jumping up remembering the bang and smelling the smoke and hearing the screams.
I took a herbal remedy and calmed down and went to sleep about 11pm still feeling nauseous and utterly drained.
Today I feel much better. Not sick any more.
The best way to defeat the terrorists is to go to work on the Tube, to dress and work how I want as a woman, to enjoy the rich social life that London offers, to have no fear of other cultures or creeds.
We should only to be wary of the hate-filled, the nihilistic, the furiously angry who won't listen or engage.
I'm now drinking yet more tea and about to put my lovely flowers in vases.
My fingernails are still black, so I'm going to cut them off. My chest still feels full of soot and I'm still coughing a bit. My stitches are healing nicely.
Things feel a bit more normal but I think I am going to see about getting a massage or some trauma counselling.
I've had post-traumatic stress disorder before so I know the drill and how I react.
I am aware of how telling my eyewitness story to a couple of journalists outside the hospital helped me get the story out straight away.
My normal reaction to trauma is to tell someone, to share it.
More journos phoned yesterday. I must have given my mobile to the stringer who was asking questions when I was wandering outside the hospital getting fresh air after being stitched still in shock.
The Mail on Sunday and Metro wanted to send a photographer round! I said no way.
I said I felt it was important to get witness statements out at the time as I was there and felt relatively untraumatised so I'd rather they spoke to me than shoved their mikes and cameras in the faces of those who were shell-shocked or more injured.
Having done that I really do not want any more fuss.
I happened to be there, I said what it was like, that's enough.
I'm dumping on the internet under my urban75 [community and action website] pseudonym. I'm talking to people who love me, I'm doing what I need to get through this.
I was incredibly lucky but I have no desire to become a "Blast Survivor Girlie" one week on.
I still really, really want to know - need to know - if the bomb was on my carriage and if any of the people who I saw getting in at King's Cross were hurt or died, especially the laughing black woman with braids.
Her smiling face haunts me, as does the fact that someone may have got in behind her carrying the bomb.
If the bomb was that close why aren't I dead?
Keep thinking of WH Auden's Icarus poem about the banality of evil."
Return to top
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4670099.stm
link.
Maybe at this stage she told herself that being on one of the other carriages wasn't a good enough story.
it is not off topic at all. Very interesting, thankyou.
We have deleted the two comments joking about Rachel selling her book from door to door like the Jehovah's witnesses and the bailiffs being sent round to people who don't like her rubbish. Funny but they mess about with the serious issue of Rachel's confabulations.
pffft Rachel crap. Shes roaring and crying about her PTS and her nightmares three years later to keep her story up but in July 2005 she thought she might just get a massage and feel better...
great blog!
I've been waiting years to see someone take her down a peg or 2!
well done!
:-D
Excuse me Rachel North but how in the heck do you describe everything about the bomb in "your carriage" when you knew nothing about it in July 2005?
Post a Comment