#13 - All That Is Solid

by Rosanne Rabinowitz

36 pages

Published October 2019

First we’ll get the Poles, then we get the gays …

These are the words Gosia hears as she heads home from a night out with friends. It’s the summer of 2016 and London is simmering with tension after the Brexit referendum. She is Polish-born and a Londoner for most of her adult life, but now she feels like a stranger in the place she calls home. Nothing is certain anymore; even the ground beneath her feet and the surface where she rests her hand feel unstable and likely to dissolve. Though she takes part in demonstrations, she feels very much alone. When her friend Ilona suggests therapy to help her face her fears, Gosia decides to have a go. It couldn’t hurt… could it?

Rosanne Rabinowitz’s compelling novelette ranges through activism and art therapy to the reality of city life to present a portrait of Brexit Britain, capturing a moment in time and a period in history.

Rosanne Rabinowitz started writing when she produced zines in the 1990s such as Feminaxe and Bad Attitude, contributing articles, reviews and interviews. Then she began to make stuff up... Her debut fiction collection Resonance & Revolt was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award and her earlier novella Helen’s Story received a nomination for the Shirley Jackson Award. Recent tales have appeared in anthologies such as Uncertainties III, Murder Ballads and Pareidolia. Rosanne lives in South London, an area that Arthur Machen once described as "shapeless, unmeaning, dreary, dismal beyond words”. In this most unshapen place she works at several occupations including care work, copy writing and freelance editing – and recovers with whisky, chocolate, strong coffee and loud music.