Tracy Crisp’s episodic memoir Pearls is a soft, bittersweet collection of personal anecdotes and stories which were originally performed as a series of monologues at Adelaide Fringe, debuting in 2018 and staged again last year.

Crisp is a true multi-hyphenate: librarian-meets-writer, stand-up comedian-meets-funeral celebrant, and loving mother embracing and embodying all those by whom she has been loved. Throughout her book there is a beautiful through-line and sentiment of carrying with us the lives of those who came before – our parents, and their own parents before them, and so on. Crisp invites us into her life and asks us to stay awhile. The first thing that strikes me is how her memories, particularly her childhood spent in Port Pirie, are deeply connected to sensory experiences. She recalls various scents, smells that remind her of her mother – green apple shampoo, Oil of Ulan, Marlboro Reds. Every story is heavy with nostalgia. It feels as if we are taken back in time, and shadowing Crisp as she revisits the past.

Her writing is conversational and clever, building from moment to moment with intention – leading us as readers gently to follow her as she grapples with her own identity and what to make of it, and her own realisations about coming home to Adelaide after spending many years travelling and overseas. Each piece is charged and emotional on the page, powerful in written form even though all were first intended for live storytelling.

This beautiful chronology of work offers a small glimpse into a big, full life defined by family relationships, motherhood, and grief; a life that confronts the reality of working out who you are, and the ache of understanding who you could be.