A stunning book in which darkness and light, tragedy and humour, pain and hope are all masterfully, affectingly balanced’–Liam Williams Katy Wix: Yeah it’s like the cognitive dissonance we need to go about our lives. Otherwise we’d all just start screaming. I think before I experienced loss, I didn’t really think about it. And I think that’s kind of correct — I feel like when you’re young you shouldn’t think about it. There’s a friend of my mum’s who I suppose must be in her late 50s who still hasn’t lost anyone. Like she still has her grandparents and she kind of just looks frightened. I think it’s an emotional privilege, in many ways, to go through your 20s and not lose anyone. I have friends who lost a parent when they were really young and I think they just kind of had to park it and deal with it later. We’ll have to stay tuned and see, but it seems like no coincidence that he joined the show so soon after Mary’s departure. Why do we read literature? Because it allows us to be someone else, making it, quite simply, “the finest cultural bargain ever to come your way”. Veteran American literary scholar Arnold Weinstein presents an irresistible thesis in this agile, instantly engaging work of personal literary criticism. He anchors it in his early experiences as an identical twin, and, through works by authors from Sophocles to Toni Morrison, shows us how the shapeshifting that they enable alters and expands our own sense of self. As he notes: “We enter the bookstore, see all the books arrayed there, and think: so little time; but the truth goes the other way: books do not take time, they give time.” Delicacy: A Memoir About Cake and Death Katy Wix recently starred in the new Channel 4 sitcom Big Boys, which has been renewed for series two.

I didn’t know the author was a celebrity when I bought this book, so considering writing isn’t her day job this wasn’t bad! Having said that, I have my reservations. Whatever the reason Katy Wix decided to leave the show, it’s clear her character will be hugely missed! How did fans react to Katy Wix leaving the role of Mary? Why did Katy Wix leave Ghosts? Katy Wix played Mary for four series of Ghosts (Credit: BBC) Why did Katy Wix – who played Mary – leave Ghosts? To summarise, probably more a slice of “life” -well actually, more death, loss and grief, than a slice of cake... However, it is also -and rather unfortunately, a book that would strongly benefit from an extra edit or two, as ultimately it read a little too “all over the (cake?)shop” for my likingThe one I remember the most is Abigail’s Party. Seeing Alison Steadman’s performance made me want to do character acting. It was just a phenomenal, convincing, detailed performance. Years later, I wrote a radio sitcomthat she was in. It was one of those absurd moments where you just have to leave your body and look down on yourself to be able to handle it. Brilliantly original, funny and insightful. Dry and comic, but also very moving. I absolutely loved Delicacy‘ – Katy Brand Caragh Medlicott: I watched the YouTube interviews you did to go along with the book and heard you say that reading other people’s memoirs sometimes jogged your own memory, and that reading other people’s stories in general was more enriching than self-help books. It made me think of a quote from Kazuo Ishiguro: “In the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. […] Does it feel this way to you?” — I wondered, how much did you think about the reader when you were writing? Was there anything you hoped people would take from it?

I began to type: ‘Of course, I forgive you. It was years ago now. We were only young, we’re very different people now. We were teenagers. Let’s just move on . . .’ As I was writing it, I thought things like, This is so kind of me and, This is the right thing to do and, It feels good to do the right thing and, How nice of her. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t press ‘send’. A few days later, I recounted the whole thing to my therapist during our session and told her what my draft reply had said, waiting at home to be sent. She said, ‘And is that how you feel?’ and I thought for a while, and then I said, ‘No. No, that’s definitely not how I feel,’ and she said, ‘Well, don’t send it then,’ and I thought, What a good therapist. So, that evening, I replied with the truth instead. ‘No, I don’t forgive you,’ I wrote and pressed ‘send’. Bird Island – Radio 4 Sitcom". British Comedy Guide. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017 . Retrieved 19 July 2017. Caragh Medlicott: I really felt that your voice and style were so clear throughout the book. I always think there is something quite lonely about prose in particular. I wondered how you approached writing it, and how you found the transition from the script writing you’d done previously?

It’s like the way some writers think ‘strong female lead’ means a female character who is capable of violence/revenge, but it takes just as much strength to be fat or depressed. Heartbreaking, ridiculously clever and laugh out loud funny. One of the best books on trauma I've ever read'

Writing on a fan forum, one said: “I cried so hard. I’m devastated! Mary has been my favourite from the start. I’m so sad.” Mary left the rest of the Ghosts in episode four… (Credit: BBC) Why did Mary – actress Katy Wix – leave Ghosts?

Comic actor Katy Wix’s hilarious, heartbreaking memoir is made up of 21 defining, variously devastating vignettes in which cakes – “weird, camp objects” – pop up in supporting roles. There’s the rose-covered royal icing on the cake that made her realise comedy was her calling, the bara brith she eats in hospital after a life-altering car crash, the homemade madeira cake that someone brings along to a grief therapy group. She’s a writer with an impressive range, and while the switches occasionally feel hectic, Delicacy is entertaining and affecting, filled with satisfying observations about body image, grief and memory. Katy Victoria J Wix (born 28 February 1980) [1] is a Welsh actress, writer, author and artist. She is best known for portraying Carole in Stath Lets Flats, Mary in Ghosts, Barbara in Ted Lasso, Jules in Big Boys, Fanny in Miranda and Daisy in Not Going Out. She has also appeared as a series contestant on Taskmaster and as a recurring character in the science fiction mini-series Torchwood: Children of Earth in 2009. [2] She has written two series of her own sitcom for BBC Radio 4, Bird Island and a sketch show for Channel 4, Anna & Katy. In 2017 her painting was chosen for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. She has written two books of monologues and in 2021 she published her first work of non-fiction, Delicacy.

And sadly, liked the rest of her ghoulish friends, we have to accept that she probably won’t return. Katy sees the world like no one else and deciphers it with extraordinary beauty. Delicacy took my breath away’– Lolly Adefope I wonder if we are born with the ability to mourn or if it is something we must learn, and, if so, who teaches us? Perhaps mourning begins the moment a baby first realises that it is a separate being from its mother. There was a film we watched when we were kids featuring the alien puppets Zig and Zag, and I can’t remember why but during the film at regular intervals there was an announcement “this film has nothing, we repeat, nothing to do with toast”. At times reading this book I thought “this chapter has nothing to do with cake”. Sometimes the links were tenuous at best, and sometimes the shorter passages felt like fillers. Insert some kind of cake metaphor here.Katy Wix: Yeah, exactly. And I think that those numbered fragments made sense because I felt like I was outside of normal time. It’s such a cliche, especially when someone dies, to say that time stops, and I don’t think it did stop, exactly, but it changed. I felt outside of other people’s time. Their lives were just carrying on and that becomes an outrageous idea when you’re grieving. Deeply comforting in how relatable it is, hilarious, and moving. I felt like this book was my best friend as soon as I started reading it'