What does true visibility look like?
Discovering an unlikely icon
Earlier this week I spent a happy hour chatting with rockstar memoirist
about her new book, the astonishing The Dry Season, (for an episode of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast coming early June). Our conversation mainly revolved around her year of voluntary celibacy, rebuilding her relationship with herself and how she learnt to access a full range of emotions without other people to channel them through. But, in amongst it all, we hit upon an unlikely source of mutual fandom: the fictional detective DCI Vera Stanhope.For those not in the know (where have you even been the last 15-odd years?), Vera is a detective based in Northumberland in the North East of England. Created by crime writer Ann Cleeves (whose brain/pen also “gave birth” to Shetland’s Jimmy Perez. There must be something in that Northumberland water…) in 1999, and turned into a 14-series TV show in 2011 with British actress Brenda Blethyn in the lead, Vera was unlike any other detective on TV then. And she still is now. In fact, Vera is unlike almost any lead character played by any woman over 40.
Why?