The Things We Live With
‘This is how I became interested in things. In their strange pull and power; in the ways they hold on to us and we to them.’
After her father dies of cancer, Gemma Nisbet is inundated with keepsakes connected to his life by family and friends. As she becomes attuned to the ways certain items can evoke specific memories or moments, she begins to ask questions about the relationships between objects and people. Why is it so difficult to discard some artefacts and not others? Does the power exerted by precious things influence the ways we remember the past and perceive the future? As Nisbet considers her father’s life and begins to connect his experiences of mental illness with her own, she wonders whether hanging on to ‘stuff’ is ultimately a source of comfort or concern.
Intimate and wide-ranging, The Things We Live With is a collection of essays about how we learn to live with the ‘things’ handed down in families which we carry throughout our lives: not only material objects, but also grief, memory, anxiety and depression. It’s about notions of home and restlessness, inheritance and belonging – and, above all, the ways we tell our stories to ourselves and other people.
The Things We Live With: Essays on Uncertainty has been shortlisted for the 2024 WA Premier’s Book Awards in the Emerging Writer category!
The winners will be announced on June 7. See more information here.
Picture by Jess Gately
Gemma Nisbet is a Western Australian-based writer whose work has appeared in Westerly, Australian Book Review and TEXT, among other publications. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia and teaches Creative Writing and Literary Studies at universities. Her professional background also includes seven years as a travel journalist, and nearly five years writing a weekly book reviews and interviews column for The West Australian. Gemma lives on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja with her husband and their dog, Pickle.
The Things We Live With is her first book.
Praise for The Things We Live With
‘The Things We Live With is a tender cartography of grief and familial legacy, in which Gemma Nisbet elegantly explores how the maps we make — whether by story, memory, art, or artefact — inevitably fall shy of the territory.’
— Josephine Rowe, author of Here Until August, Tarcutta Wake and A Loving, Faithful Animal
‘Wise, profound and with tender humour, The Things We Live With expands our thinking about the power of objects to shape our sense of self, anchor our memories, and reflect our place in the world. In these superb, engrossing essays Gemma Nisbet draws us in close as she examines what we hold onto, what we let go, and the complex relationships between the tangible and intangible. A moving portrayal of grief, love, and legacy, this is a collection to treasure.’
— Vanessa Berry, author of Gentle & Fierce and Mirror, Sydney
‘What are we to make of all these things around us? And what are they to make of us? Delicately, as if unpacking a box of fragile treasures, Nisbet cups in her hands and presents us with a series of relationships: with old, loved things, with her family, and her own crushable centre. They are all, it turns out, well kept in the same box. Nisbet wraps her meditations in soft words and firm intelligence, and in this wonderful, digressive and intently considered work she uncovers the tender meaning of possessions, and what it is to be possessed by them too. As a devoted keeper of objects, I read this book with recognition and envy, and anyone who inherits, hoards, abhors or adores the relics of their lives will appreciate Nisbet’s candour and contemplations.”
— Kate Holden, author of In My Skin, The Romantic and Winter Road
‘When you read this book of essays, you will feel the presence of a kind, clever mind thinking; you will be invited into its orbit, and asked, delicately, to hold some of the complexity it comprehends. In this way, The Things We Live With becomes a thing to think with: it will thicken your sense of the world around you; give depth and angles on the deep and moving encounters with the world which make up our lives, and it will become a book you return to when you need to feel the closeness of a friend.’
— Daniel Juckes, General Editor of Westerly
Reviews of The Things We Live With
“These beautiful essays are braided. But they are also fragmentary – the essay giveth and the essay taketh away. They attempt to corral chaos, to define the ineffable. But they also open up space for important conversations around grief, illness, identity, memory and the objects that tell our stories.”
— Writing WA
“Nisbet’s writing is rich and vivid, and conjures up a tender history of her family… beautifully engaging… I would recommend this book to those who love creative nonfiction, and anyone looking for memoir writing that isn’t afraid to experiment with form and style. To the hoarders among us, to those afraid to let go, to those more than ready – these essays are for you.
— Readings
“The Things We Live With is an A-Z of the heart, a lost and found department of the mind, which may change the way you think about our relationships to travel, objects and memories”.
— The West Australian
“[Nisbet’s] essays shift seamlessly from childhood to adult travels, jobs, relationships, and the problems that can lurk beneath a functional exterior … her sentiments are never mawkish, despite the emotive nature of her subject. She is curious, questing, and questioning, clever and successful, but also self-doubting, her process a complex stitching together of personal anecdote and related research.”
— Australian Book Review
“This book of essays awakens in the reader a sense of wonder about the magic found in the things we cherish, which hold not only physical value but also stand as reminders of cherished memories of people, places and times we have loved… Readers who enjoy deeply personal memoirs, such as Chitra Ramaswamy’s Homelands, will enjoy this book.”
— Books + Publishing
“From macabre objects like her own discoloured baby teeth to the strange plastic array of tourist magnets, Nisbet interrogates the ambivalent feelings generated by the detritus of another’s life … More questions than answers, all beautifully and lyrically described. This is a book for anyone who loves things.
— ABR’s Books of the Year 2023
“An intelligent collection that will appeal to the bowerbirds and scanvengers.”
— The Saturday Paper’s Books of the Year 2023
Upcoming events
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I’m running a Writing with Objects workshop in Augusta on May 17. Details are here.
Past events
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September 28 — October 1, with events in Geraldton and Mullewa. See the program here.
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The Things We Live With will be launched by Tanya Dalziell at Rodney’s Bait ‘n’ Tackle in Mosman Park October 12 from 6.30pm. See more details here.
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In-conversation with Daniel Juckes, General Editor of Westerly, on October 30.
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I ran a free workshop on writing with objects at Subiaco Library on November 17.
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I was on a panel titled Found Objects with Mok Zining, Daniel Juckes and facilitator Will Yeoman.