Do You Still Have Time for Chaos by Lynn Davidson

Do You Still Have Time for Chaos? tells the story of poet and teacher Lynn Davidson’s late-life decision to leave Aotearoa New Zealand, with scant resources, to build a life in Scotland. In 2020, walking the Covid-emptied streets of Edinburgh, she begins her memoir.

Davidson’s look back at what made and fractured her includes an account of single-parenting in the shadow of poverty and stigma, and is interwoven with the ghostly presence of her uncontainable and courageous great aunt, and the long reach of witch hunts.

This is a love letter to the literature of Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand. It has an ear to the land and its stories. It is a celebration of choice. It is an act of resistance to the persistent idea that women are safer to stay at home