Madder: A Memoir in Weeds, by Marco Wilkinson

 

I really wanted to like this book. I’m generally fond of memoirs, and I love gardening, so I thought that a memoir that is framed by horticultural concepts about the different characteristics of plants generally thought of as weeds would be really good, or at least interesting. But the writing is all over the place, literally and metaphorically. It’s a mix of prose and poetry, interspersed with pages of odd typography that reminded me of the images we used to create using simple computer programs back when I was learning BASIC in the 1970s. I didn’t care for most of his prose, which is cryptic and unclear what he’s talking about in places, and I’m not a good judge of poetry. In the second half there is a section of prose that was an improvement, but it’s not enough to redeem the rest. I would like to read a memoir by Marco Wilkinson, who appears to have led an interesting life, but it would have to be very different from this book.