Opening Night (2026) by Sara Baume

I was in a small independent bookshop in Clapham when I came across Opening Night (2026) by Sara Baume. I have a self-imposed rule that I can’t leave an independent bookshop empty-handed – yes, very self-sacrificial, I know – and I am increasingly drawn to the memoir section if I don’t have anything else obvious to purchase. For the past five or six years, we seem to have been in a particularly interesting time for memoirs, often by otherwise un-famous people. Baume doesn’t fall into that category, because she is already a noted author, but I didn’t know that when I bought Opening Night. The book tells of the friendship between Baume and Mollie Douthit. Mollie is an American artist who has moved to Ireland to pursue her art, and Sara is an Irish author. Neither has achieved riches from her creativity, but both recognise in each other the single-minded, emotionally complex mind of a fellow artist. The two first meet at Sara’s friend Sue’s – I wouldn’t usually use first names of author…