This Writing Life: Recent Episodes
James Kidd
On 11th March, Hatchards hosted a live event bringing together four of the authors who contributed stories to These Our Monsters : Sarah, Moss, Fiona Mozley, Edward Carey and Graeme Mcrae Burnet. I chaired the event, and recorded it for posterity. ----more----
Posterity has arrived now. The event began with readings by each writer. Here, Sarah Moss reads from her story, 'Breakyneck'. Having chosen Berwick Castle as her English Heritage location, Sarah tells a ghost story that excavates the site's violent past - above all, the pitiless exploitation of Irish workers drafted to build the 19th century railway line.
These Our Monsters is a collection of modern folktales to be published by English Heritage, and featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others - including an introduction written by me.
Sarah Moss's website is: https: sarahmoss.org
For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Last year I was asked to write an introduction for a collection of modern folktales to be published by English Heritage. ----more----
The result was These Our Monsters, featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others.
I talked to three of the authors for This Writing Life podcast. The third is Graeme Macrae Burnet, whose brilliant His Bloody Project was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Graeme's 'The Dark Thread' tackled the most infamous, and perhaps the trickiest story in the book - Bram Stoker's visit to Whitby in 1890, which is often thought to have been a turning point in the composition of Dracula.
Graeme reads an early passage in the story, which shuttles fluently between the atmospheric setting of Whitby Abbey and Stoker's inner turmoil - his exhaustion, strained marriage, and tortured relationship with the actor Henry Irving.
Our interview will follow, as will readings by and conversations with Graeme Macrae Burnet and Edward Carey.
Graeme's website is: graememacraeburnet.com
For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Last year I was asked to write an introduction for a collection of modern folktales to be published by English Heritage. ----more----
The result was These Our Monsters, featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others.
I talked to three of the authors for This Writing Life podcast. The second is Fiona Mozley, whose debut novel Elmet was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Fiona's story in 'The Loathly Lady' was inspired by the Arthurian legend of Dame Ragnelle, supposedly the most hideous woman in the world who makes a trial of Sir Gawain's chivalry. The plot is a quest to find a different sort of holy grail: the answer to the question, 'What do women want?'
Fiona reads an early passage full of puns and plays on words that establish Arthur's legendary status. Our interview will follow, as will readings by and conversations with Graeme Macrae Burnet and Edward Carey.
For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Last year I was asked to write an introduction for a collection of modern folktales, myths and legends to be published by English Heritage. ----more----
The result was These Our Monsters, featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others.
I talked to three of the authors for This Writing Life podcast. The first is Edward Carey, the novelist and illustrator whose works include the 'Iremonger Trilogy' and his fabulous novel about Madame Tussaud, Little.
Edward's story 'These Our Monsters', which gives the book its title, is inspired by the legend of the Green Children of Woolpit, in Suffolk. Its extraordinary narrator is one of the villagers, whom I described (if memory serves) as two parts Gollum to one part Alf Garnet, as he attempts to make sense of this universe-altering visitation.
Edward's reading more than lives up to his prose. Our interview will follow, as will readings by and conversations with Graeme Macrae Burnet and Fiona Mozley.
Edward's website is: edwardcareyauthor.com
For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Reading from the blog on his own website, Simon Barnes describes the close attention required and inspired by bird-watching, and the almost poetic empathy that can result. ----more----
Part two of our interview with Simon will follow.
Read more about 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prizes here.
For 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize, click here.
For information on 2020’s Young Romantics Prize click here.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Part two of our conversation with Simon Barnes, the award-winning sportswriter, revered birdlover and Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes.
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Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, which made Simon the perfect choice as Chair.
In which Simon discusses the repertory singers that are skylarks and nightingales, how and why they sing (and does this make them sexy), whether Keats' nightingale could sing and fly - and does that spoil the poem?
After this, we move onto the extinction threats looming over both birds - not to mention the planet as a whole - and whether poetry can help sharpen our awareness of humankind's mortality?
Simon Barnes is unique in the world of literature. How many revered sports writers are also revered nature writers too? Off the top of my head I can think of one: Simon Barnes himself.
For many years the chief sports of the Times, he covered seven Olympics, five World Cups, a Superbowl and the World Chess Championship. His profiles included everyone from David Beckham to Red Rum, his publications range from novels about Hong Kong to a biography about England off-spinner Phil Edmunds.
What elevated Barnes above his peers was prose that could pithily encapsulate the drama simmering underneath the surface action: ‘With Sampras the beauty was subtle, the tactics and execution obvious. With Federer, it was exactly the other way around,’ as he wrote in his 2018 career-spanning retrospective, Epic.
As this reading from his excellent The Meaning of Birds, Barnes has brought similarly acute sensitivity to his accounts of the natural work - and of birds and birdsong above all.
This is one reason I approached Simon (in my other work for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association) to be the Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes - for poetry and essays. Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.
I recently met Simon in London to talk to him about his love of nature, poetry, sport and writing - not to mention how this feeds into Romanticism, Keats and Shelley.
Part one of that conversation is posted on this very website.
Read more about 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prizes here.
For 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize, click here.
For information on 2020’s Young Romantics Prize click here.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
In this first of two episodes, I talk to Simon Barnes, the award-winning sportswriter, revered birdlover and Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes.
Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, which made Simon the perfect choice as Chair.
We talked, among other things, about his own changing relationship with nature, how he fell in love with birds and birding, what birding means in the 21st century and its relationship with writing in general, and Romantic poetry in particular. We even address the question of John Keats' wonky nightingale. ----more----
Simon Barnes is unique in the world of literature. How many revered sports writers are also revered nature writers too? Off the top of my head I can think of one: Simon Barnes himself.
For many years the chief sports of the Times, he covered seven Olympics, five World Cups, a Superbowl and the World Chess Championship. His profiles included everyone from David Beckham to Red Rum, his publications range from novels about Hong Kong to a biography about England off-spinner Phil Edmunds.
What elevated Barnes above his peers was prose that could pithily encapsulate the drama simmering underneath the surface action: ‘With Sampras the beauty was subtle, the tactics and execution obvious. With Federer, it was exactly the other way around,’ as he wrote in his 2018 career-spanning retrospective, Epic.
As this reading from his excellent The Meaning of Birds, Barnes has brought similarly acute sensitivity to his accounts of the natural work - and of birds and birdsong above all.
This is one reason I approached Simon (in my other work for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association) to be the Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes - for poetry and essays. Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.
I recently met Simon in London to talk to him about his love of nature, poetry, sport and writing - not to mention how this feeds into Romanticism, Keats and Shelley.
Part one of that conversation is posted on this very website.
Read more about 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prizes here.
For 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize, click here.
For information on 2020’s Young Romantics Prize click here.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Simon Barnes is unique in the world of literature. How many revered sports writers are also revered nature writers too? Off the top of my head I can think of one: Simon Barnes himself. ----more----
For many years the chief sports of the Times, he covered seven Olympics, five World Cups, a Superbowl and the World Chess Championship. His profiles included everyone from David Beckham to Red Rum, his publications range from novels about Hong Kong to a biography about England off-spinner Phil Edmunds.
What elevated Barnes above his peers was prose that could pithily encapsulate the drama simmering underneath the surface action: ‘With Sampras the beauty was subtle, the tactics and execution obvious. With Federer, it was exactly the other way around,’ as he wrote in his 2018 career-spanning retrospective, Epic.
As this reading from his excellent The Meaning of Birds, Barnes has brought similarly acute sensitivity to his accounts of the natural work - and of birds and birdsong above all.
This is one reason I approached Simon (in my other work for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association) to be the Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes - for poetry and essays. Our theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.
I recently met Simon in London to talk to him about his love of nature, poetry, sport and writing - not to mention how this feeds into Romanticism, Keats and Shelley.
Part one of that conversation is posted on this very website.
Read more about 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prizes here.
For 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize, click here.
For information on 2020’s Young Romantics Prize click here.
The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie.
Amanda Coe is an English novelist and screenwriter, whose credits include the BAFTA-winning adaptation of John Braine's Room at the Top, and her highly-praised thrillers What They Do in the Dark and Getting Colder. This Writing Life met her at Waterstones Piccadilly to talk about everything from her excellent new novel Everything You Do is Wrong to her childhood in Canada and Doncaster, her student days at Oxford, her formative love of George Eliot and PG Wodehouse and the challenge of being busy.
Part 2 to follow.
The final part of This Writing Life podcast's chat with Leila Slimani begins with a question about racisial abuse of Muslims in France. From here we discuss her relationship with Morrocco, with sexual politics in that country, between her fiction and her activism, and finally about the future: movie adaptations of her global smash-hit Lullaby and that next novel.
Part three of This Writing Life's podcast with Leila Slimani, author of global smash-hit Lullaby, moves towards more personal territory. We talk about her family, her background and her views on everything from the French language to women wearing the veil.
Along the way, Leila discusses her role for President Macron promoting the French language and ponders whether whether it is courageous to speak out on issues like Islamic fundamentalism that might put her in danger. During this, I accidentally stumble into terrain explored by her current work-in-progress.
The final part to follow.
Part two of Leila Slimani's conversation with This Writing Life podcast about her new novel Lullaby begins with a discussion of objectification: in this case, of the nanny who cares for the children of the Masse family. Slimani talks about her own vexed relationship with the woman who cares for her own children, about the power struggles in that interaction and finally about the idea of tragedy in the novel. We talk Mary Poppins, Mrs Doubtfire, and why Lullaby refuses both visions of modern childcare.
Part three to follow.
Leila Slimani's second novel Lullaby is a phenomenon. Having sold over 600,000 copies and won the Prix Goncourt in her adopted homeland of France, the book is now spreading around the world in various translations. A movie has begun filming in France and there are rumours of a Hollywood adaptation as well. The reason for the fuss is a plot that grips like a thriller and prose that dissects contemporary life like the most acute literary novel. The nanny of the well-to-do Masse family murders the two children in her care. From this terse, shocking opening, Slimani rewinds to examine the pressures that led up to the tragedy.
In Part One of our conversation at her London publishers, Slimani talks about titles, tragedy, modern parenting, the challenges of being a nanny and how families rely on women from across the world to facilitate their lives.
Part two to follow.
Lynn Shepherd was the first ever This Writing Life recorded. The final part of our conversation begins with a discussion of social media and publicity, and the part both play in her writing life. From here we zoom through the joys and trials of writing novels: bad days, bad reviews, and how her close friends and confidents help her through. We end by looking to the future, and by asking: what has Lynn learned from her writing life so far.
Lynn's website can be found: here.
As a trailer ahead of part four of This Writing Life podcast's conversation with novelist Lynn Shepherd, she offers some advice to budding writers...
Part three of Lynn Shepherd's This Writing Life podcast mixes business and pleasure: how did a successful city worker become a successful writer? Doctorates on Samuel Richardson, freelance copywriting, and publishing novels all flash past in quick succession. We talk unpublished novels, the challenges of finishing a book and writing for writing's sake. Lynn discusses where her own voice lies in the novels she produces, discusses how to information dump, and how much license to take with historical fact. We end by discussing the complex subject of her latest historical book, A Treacherous Likeness, the Romantic poet Percy Shelley.
Part 4 of 4 to follow.
Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Oxford-based novelist Lynn Shepherd begins with some chat about her love of 'clever crime', and how it shapes her novels like Murder in Mansfield Park and Tom All-Alones. We end this edition by discussing the other prime influence on these early historical novels: her love of classic literature, above all Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. But where does Dickens end and Lynn Shepherd begin?
In between we talk novel endings, books series, Shepherd's student days (and those of Percy Shelley), and that old work-life balance.
The latest episode of This Writing Life podcast is particularly special in that it was the first ever recorded. The subject is Lynn Shepherd, a crime writer, critic, journalist, and copy writer who lives and works in Oxford. Her speciality is literary mystery fiction: each of her novels, Murder in Mansfield Park, Tom All-Alone's, A Treacherous and The Pierced Heart insert an ingenious crime into a well-known story or writer's life. Before we talk about re-mixing Austen, Dickens, Shelley and Bram Stoker, we discuss her life, career, day jobs and love of literature. We even intrigue a little, in the style of Jane Austen.
More information can be found at: lynn-shepherd.com
In the final part of This Writing Life podcast's conversation with Neel Mukherjee, we begin with Donald Trump before floating in a liberal bubble towards Neel's decision to stop listening to the news. We talk about the novel might cope with a 24 hour news cycle and Neel's own creative method - taking in his daily grind and his experience of studying creative writing courses.
Neel's excellent new novel A State of Freedom is out now.
In the second part of Neel Mukherjee's chat with This Writing Life podcast, he talks the influence of ghost stories on his excellent new novel A State of Freedom, about returning to India (as a visitor and writer), about the short story-novel, about surviving the Man Booker Prize shortlist for The Lives of Others, about the international trends of English literature, and finally about researching and writing about Indian bear-dancing.
Part 3 to follow.
In the opening instalment of This Writing Life podcast's interview with Neel Mukherjee, Man Booker shortlisted author of The Lives of Others, we discuss his excellent new novel A State of Freedom. After admitting a little pre-publication anxiety, Mukherjee moves onto his new book and its various debts to VS Naipaul's In a Free State and Jawaharlal Nehru's 'Tryst with Destiny' speech, not to mention the parallels with recent interlinked narratives by Davids Mitchell and Szalay. Having slalomed around Mukherjee's relationship with Modernism and his portrait of Indian inequality, we end by discussing food and whether A State of Freedom is happy novel.
Part two of three to follow.
In the final part of This Writing Life podcast's conversation with Meena Kandasamy, she discusses India as a modern superpower, the place of violence in the lives of women, the poor and everyday society, shifts smartly to talk about her first (and possibly only) venture into acting, before turning to the future. We end by wondering whether the appaling events depicted in her debut novel, The Gipsy Goddess, could ever happen again.
In the third part of This Writing Life podcast's chat with the Indian poet, novelist and activist Meena Kandasamy, we begin with some chatter about the title of her debut novel, The Gipsy Goddess, before exploring her fraught relationship with social media - its pros and cons for political engagement, literary creativity, feminism and all-round mental health.
Part four to follow.
In the second part of This Writing Life podcast's interview with Meena Kandasamy, we discuss how fiction mixes with historical truth, women in The Gipsy Goddess, language to shock and illuminate. And more on Nicki Minaj of course.
Part three to follow.
In this new mini-podlet, Meena Kandasamy reads from chapter 4 of her first novel, The Gipsy Goddess. For those of a nervous disposition, the passage does contain a little strong language, and a reference to Nicki Minaj. But surely those are good things?
This Writing Life podcast extracts an interview from its vaults. Back when we had the energy to attempt an actual introduction, even when we mispronounce the author's name, we talked to the extraordinary Meena Kandasamy about her extraordinary debut novel, The Gypsy Goddess.
Part 2 to follow.
The final part of This Writing Life's conversation with Rick Bass, award winning writer and respected environmental activist, begins where the last podlet ended. 'Obey little, resist much.' From there, we consider time and how art can help breed a sense of empathy. Bass bashes the de-humanising effects of corporate existence, the apathy and 'altered truths' that make up contemporary life. The pod ends with more Trump, some lighter discussion of Bass's writing day, his family, and finally - with one eye on the audio-audience, so to speak - some chat about Montana.
For a little more about Bass' superb collection For a Little While, visit.
You can listen to Rick read The Hermit's Story here.
Thank you for listening.
In this short but inspiring podlet, This Writing Life attempts its best impersonation of Pod Save America and asks: what can we do to organise resistance against Donald Trump, destroyer of worlds, ruiner of all things good and wholesome and green and free? Where does Bass draw the line when resisting: the picket line, the jail cell? What would he say to anyone tempted to welcome the frackers?
Part five of five to follow.
In part four of This Writing Life's conversation with Rick Bass, whose new book For a Little While (Pushkin) on 2017's Story Prize, we talk about his love of the short story, and why it is the most human of literary forms. We return to the relationship between Bass's environmentalism and his writing, before skipping off again onto nature writing and finally the difference between optimism and hope in Bass's conception of humankind. Buried somewhere in all this, Bass refuses to talk about his new novel. 'It's an old writer's taboo...'
The fifth and final part to follow next week.
A short trailer for part 4 of This Writing Life's conversation with Rick Bass. In which Rick answers the question: are you optimisitic about human nature?
Part three of This Writing Life's transatlantic chat with a Montana-bound Rick Bass takes in the material in Episode 119: in which Rick reviews his short story career in For a Little While (Pushkin), and attempting to describe what it feels like to be lost in a story.
In between he discusses the connections between writing and geology, about following his imaginative nose through a story. To finish, we talk about his story 'Elk', which first appeared in the New Yorker, images of substrata and blue in his work, and the mysteriousness of his own characters.
Part 4 to follow.
'You are a stranger inhabiting this blazing dream and you barely get out with your life...yeah, and then you go to the bar for a drink.'
A Writing Life podlet, in which Rick Bass recalls what's like to review your career (to date) in his superb collection of stories, For a Little While (Pushkin Press), which won 2017's Story Prize. From here Bass tries to explain what it feels like when inspiration strikes and fades.
Part two of This Writing Life's transatlantic conversation with Rick Bass, novelist, activist, award-winning short story writer, begins with a question referencing Philip Larkin, Romanticism and Transcendentalism and continues with an answer discussing fiction, geology, humans and time: 'We are new to this world. We don't know how to be in this old world.' ----more----From here we moved towards some if not all the following:
- Bass, religion and nature
- 'fostered alike by beauty and by fear': nature as teacher?
- autobiography, family and discovering nature
- nature as idea or reality?
- Annie Gillard, Peter Matheson, Edward Abbey: Bass and nature writing
- 'I like people. I just don't like being around them': Bass as misanthropist?
- bookshops, Russians, Flannery O'Connor, Jim Harrison: how did Bass start writing?
Part 3 to follow.
'I am working on a new novel...and an op-ed for the Los Angeles paper about Trump and his reign of terror.' Here in one line is This Writing Life's lengthy podcast conversation with Rick Bass - novelist, award-winning short story writer, and environmental activist. In future episodes we discuss For a Little While, a collection of his best short fiction, which a week after we spoke won the prestigious Story Prize.
We began however with Rick Bass the Environmental Activist - in his home state of Montana and elsewhere across the United States and disunited world. You can read more about his work to save the natural world and fight the powers that seek to denude it at his excellent website: rickbass.net/projects.
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We spoke over the magic of Skype. This not only allowed us to talk from different locations (TWL at home in Oxford; Bass from his writing office near Montana State University), it inspired new, if temporary theme music. Other sounds are provided by the TWL daughter: 'It's good music,' Bass said kindly as she chatters in the background. In this opening instalment, our focus was on the election of Donald Trump and what it might mean for the environment and environmental politics in the United States.
Bass is unequivocal: 'In the worst nightmare horror movie you would not have such goings on'. From this low point we skate upwards to:
- Bass on the 2016 Presidential race
- 'Everybody's in mourning and is searching for a centre current of resistance': the response to Trump's ascension
- 'I for one am glad I have guns': Bass on protest and a 'terrifying' America
- would Hilary Clinton have been a greener President?
- Trump, the Keystone Pipeline, Scott Pruitt - reasons not to be cheerful
- the state of writing and journalism under Trump
- 'cultural clamour': the changing, angry face of public politics in America
- Rick Bass: writing or activism; writing and activism?
- science, art, politics
Part two to follow.
'I quite liked it.' So says Gary Younge about America in the final part of This Writing Life podcast's conversation about his wonderful new book, Another Day in the Death of America. We began by asking asking Younge about his decision to leave the country and return to his home in Hackney, east London. A description of his feelings on departing the United States leads into a meditation on his Barbadian family background, and what it means to grow up black in Britain. 'There is an element of outsiderness here that I carry with me.'
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From here, he talked about
- what politicians in America (this was pre-Trump, mind you) are doing to confront the problems Younge's book raises: gun control, racism, the gap between rich and poor, healthcare
- are there causes for hope
- Younge on Trump and Clinton
- on returning to London - and how his family are adapting
- what toll did researching and writing the book take on Younge?
Our next guest on This Writing Life is the American novelist, short story writer and activist, Rick Bass.
In part three of Gary Younge's conversation with This Writing Life podcast, we continue our discussion of his extraordinary book A Day in the Death of America. We begin by discussing the idea of choice in the lives of the teenagers Younge writes about - all of whom are either the victims of gun violence, or the perpetrator. Younge weighs up role of personal responsibility against a culture and society in which gun violence is simply more likely. He recalls the tragic example of Justin, who was shot in a case of mistaken identity whilst driving on the streets of Goldsboro, North Carolina. ----more----Younge then considers:
- the challenge of writing Justin's story
- place, theme, character: how did Younge 'put a human face' on gun violence
- 'How do we avoid turning this into a tale of unrelenting woe? Who wants to read a book that just says death?'
- how Younge wrote about his own part in the story
Part 4 of 4 to follow.
In part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Gary Younge about his powerful book Another Day in the Death of America, we begin by discussing the place of guns in the stories he tells: the deaths by gun-shots on one random day of teenagers across the United States. What makes America different with regards gun-crime? Do guns kill people, or is it the people themselves? ----more----Having addressed this, we moved onto:
- Younge's own encounters with guns living in Chicago
- 'Why would I want a gun?': what Younge learned when covering NRA conventions
- why your wife is more likely to shoot you than anyone else?
- did Younge understand the attraction of guns for teenagers
- killers and victims: how guns change lives in an instant
- the path towards violence: culture and personal responsibility
- Younge's childhood and future opportunities
- death or jail: teenagers, risks and the margins for error
Part 3 of 4 to follow.
Gary Younge is an acclaimed writer and journalist, best known for his reporting on the United States for the Guardian in the United Kingdom. The author of several books, he spoke to This Writing Life podcast about his most recent: Another Day in the Death in America (Faber & Faber). As he explains in the introduction, its premise is tragically simple: every day on average seven children and teens are shot dead by guns in America. Younge decided to tell the story of one day, 23rd November 2013, selected at random, on which 10 young people were killed.
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We spoke at the offices of Faber & Faber in the autumn of 2016: hence the red hot topical reference to the imminent debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton (them were the days).
Younge begins by describing the background and thesis of the book, how the stories themselves suggested themes, rather than the other way around, how the demographics of the day differed from the average. From there we moved through:
- the role of mental health in one of the shootings
- myths about parenting and African-American fathers
- fatalism and the poignant refrain of 'If only'...
Part 2 to follow.
Read Gillian Slovo's review of Another Day in the Death of America: here.
The final part of Kevin Sullivan's conversation with This Writing Life podcast arrives after a slight delay for a summer holiday. We begin by asking whether Kevin has a typical writing day - a pressing matter given his long career as a foreign correspondent. From here we move through his creative process as a novelist (editing and re-writing) to the challenges of writing from the middle of a war zone. We also discuss his human rights work with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), above all in identifying those murdered at Srebrenica.
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The remainder of our chat includes:
- did Kevin hesitate to return to Sarajevo after being blown-up by a landmine?
- Kevin discusses his work with ICMP, and the challenge of identifying the victims of the Srebrenica genocide
- what is the situation in Bosnia right now?
- where does Sullivan call home?
Visit the ICMP here.
Read more about Kevin's novel, The Longest Winter here.
In the fourth part of This Writing Life's conversation with journalist and novelist Kevin Sullivan, we move away from his experiences reporting on the siege of Sarajevo to his writing career more generally.
Sullivan discussed his formative literary loves, his romantic ideas of the foreign correspondent, before delving into the reality of writing about conflict from across the world. He recalls riots in Korea and finding himself in the middle of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Part 5 of 5 to follow.
'It was the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard.' Kevin Sullivan begins part three of his conversation with This Writing Life podcast by remembering the landmine explosion that almost killed him while he was reporting in Gornji Vakuf, in the early days of the Bosnian war.
Having described his dramatic rescue, Sullivan recalls the revelation that occurred as he lay in a nearby basement with two broken legs: 'I was very conscious then that however dramatic this experience is for me these [Bosnian] people lying on the same concrete floor are not going to get taken away and given morphine and the latest medical treatment.'
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From here we discussed:
- how did Sullivan adapt to working in a warzone?
- the teror and strange beauty of conflict
- 'They were desperate for the war to stop': how did the Bosnian war and siege of Sarajevo change the people?
- Sullivan and PTSD?
- Sullivan the war correspondent
- did writing his novel The Longest Winter help Sullivan make sense of the Bosnian war?
- what experiences can fiction describe that reporting cannot?
- 'I hope their mothers find them in a pie'
Part 4 to follow.
In part two of This Writing Life's conversation with the journalist and novelist Kevin Sullivan, we begin by asking why he travelled from Tokyo to Sarajevo in 1991 on the brink of the Bosnian War.
Sullivan offers his first impressions and a brief comparison of the city before the siege began, 25 years ago. 'It was such a great place to live.'
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From here, we moved to:
- 'It is a little bit like a drug': the attraction and terror of war reporting
- the landmine explosion that almost killed Sullivan
- 'Whatever my experience, it really was nothing compared to someone who did not choose to go there.'
- big picture vs up close and personal: the pros and cons of war reporting
- was Sullivan frightened?
- how does war reporting help?
- the day-to-day practicalities (and challenges) of war reporting
For more on Kevin Sullivan, and his excellent novel about the siege of Sarajevo The Longest Winter, click this link: http://sullivan.ba/
Our next guest on This Writing Life podcast is the journalist and novelist Kevin Sullivan. His latest novel, The Longest Winter, is set during the siege of Sarajevo, which began almost twenty-five-years ago to the day in April 1992. Sullivan covered the conflict as a journalist, and almost lost his life in the nearby town of Gornji Vakuf, when the Land Rover he was travelling in hit a landmine. Sullivan began The Longest Winter shortly after, whilst recuperating in Glasgow, but it would take many more years for the final story to be completed. ----more----In Part 1 of our conversation, Sullivan describes the liberal, tolerant Sarajevo that existed before the conflict broke out: '[It] has had a long tradition of creative co-existence among different cultures. Bosnia was in many ways a model for the rest of Europe. They were practicing multi-culturalism long before the rest of Europe.'
From here, we moved between The Longest Winter and the political back-drop to the Bosnian war - how Serbian, Croat and Bosniak politicians exploited nationalism to create emnities
Sullivan begins by discussing his work for the International Commission for Missing Persons, that has worked tirelessly to find the thousands murdered during the Srebrenica genocide, for example. Read more about their work: https://www.icmp.int/
Part 2 to follow.
There's only so much a nice podcast can take. In part two of This Writing Life's chat with LS Hilton, we dive into Maestra, the global blockbuster that made its author's name (albeit with initials replacing Lisa). We begin by asking how much of a departure its compostion was for LSH, as are calling her these days.
----more----After some chatter about comparisons to 50 Sh&^des of Gr&y, we turn to:
- the reaction (or not) of her agent
- Maestra's pitch and publication
- some more 50 Shades criticism
- reading the naughty bits
- LSH on Maestra: reviews, jokes, meritocracy & glamour
- 'I wanted to write something that was sparkly'
- 'Which one of you bitches is my influence?': Lace etc
- Maestra's audience (take that Mark Lawson)
- designer labels and American Psycho?
- Maestra, Judith and the body (disgust thereof)
- feminism, humiliation and revenge?
- is anyone nice in Maestra?
- LSH and publicity?
- Domina and what's next?
In a new two-part episode, This Writing Life meets Lisa Hilton: journalist, historian and novelist. Her 15 year-career has produced five works of non-fiction, and three of fiction. Yet it took just one book to make her name, albeit under the thin veil of LS Hilton.
Published in 2016, Maestra was a marmite erotic thriller, that provoked controversy, accalaim and headlines across the world. Rejected by Hilton's own agent who found it 'disgusting', and then by almost every English publisher, it found a home first with a film agent, and then with the up and coming Zaffre Press. 50 Shades of Grey, but cut with American Psycho and Patricia Highsmith, it told the coming-of-rage tale of Judith, an ammoral art historian-turned-call-girl -turned-international-swindler-murderer-sex-kitten. It is unnerving, gripping and darkly funny in equal measure.
The challenge facing This Writing Life: how long can we talk to Lisa Hilton about her career without mentioning her succès de scandale? Find out by listening below.
The final part of our epic chat with Richard Russo asks an epic question: what has it been like to write novels for 30 years? Having chewed over that question we move onto some other big topics, including posterity, death and what comes next (not the afterlife, just what is Russo's next project).
Finally, we ask: will there be another chapter to Donald Sullivan's adventures? Everybody's Fool is available everywhere right now. We urge you to read it at once.
'This is not an attempt on my part to portray myself as anything like a prophet. I simply was born somewhere...I got to bear witness to something that was tremendously important to me and my family.'
In this fourth and penultimate This Writing Life interview with Richard Russo, we begin with the fictional small-town of Bath that is found in both Nobody's Fool and its sequel Everybody's Fool. Russo discusses his own personal and artistic relationship with small-town life, taking in his childhood in Gloversville and how it has informed much of his work. From here we meander towards death, in fiction and life, with a cheerier side-track marked: how to begin a novel?----more----Other subjects include:
- Russo and religion
- Russo's childhood in Gloversville, New York
- the toxic effects of small-town industry on Russo's family
- is small-town life dying out in America?
- 'As a younger man I thought of [being born in a small-town] as something I would have to overcome in life...Only to come to learn that it is what has propelled my life forward...'
- Trump, Clinton, Sanders: 'who's to blame for the loss of American productivity, who's to blame for the loss of jobs?'
- who would Russo's characters have voted for in the 2016 election?
- Raymer and Sully: the 'fool' in Russo's work?
Part 5 of 5 to follow.
'I have always been a meanderer. I have always loved digression.'
So says Richard Russo in part three of This Writing Life's conversation with the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. We approach the subject of comic meandering, initially as a way to explore through narrative ideas of luck, fate and free will. We digress through a peroration about self-made men, including President Donald Trump, and Brexit towards a deeper consideration of digression in Russo's new novel, Everybody's Fool, and his work as a whole. (A small warning: the final four minutes of this interview contain a spoiler alert about the end of Everybody's Fool).
----more----
From here we wander backwards towards:
- ideas of artistic control and chaos
- what is so disturbing about parenthetical fiction?
- Tarantino, film editing and the joy of chatter: Russo on film writing vs fiction writing
- 'With every book there is a point at which getting lost becomes genuinely scary': the joy and panic of getting lost creatively
- the temptation and challenge of comic invention
- the problem of page 175: Ann Patchett on the panic of novel writing
- the problem of Everybody's Fool: Richard Russo on the panic of novel writing
- SPOILER ALERT!!!! Russo discusses the end of Everybody's Fool
Part 4 of 5 to follow.
Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo begins with the idea of sequels: his new novel, Everybody's Fool is a follow-up to Russo's masterpiece, Nobody's Fool. What are the risks of continuing a story that is not just admired but loved? Did Russo intend to write a sequel to Donald 'Sully' Sullivan's adventures. What made him return in the first place? What was it like to revisit characters who were created over 20 years before?
----more----
From here we moved onto:
- Russo's relationship with his father: 'It shouldn't have been surprising that he had more to say'
- Russo's relationship with Paul Newman, who played Sully in Robert Benton's film adaptation of Nobody's Fool
- what did Newman see in the character of Sully?
- 'I think Paul became a different actor after his son died'
- age and destiny: Russo and Sully
- 'At 67, I am trying to understand what has happened to me...I am beginning to see the shape of my life...How the fuck did that happen?'
- the comedy of life-changing moments: 'All the things in my life that have worked out for the very best...are the results of the stupidest things I could have conceivably done'
- Russo and his mother: success, failure and American road trips
Part 3 to follow.
Part 1 of This Writing Life's interview with the great American comic writer begins in media res. Russo is telling me about signing 9000 copies of his new novel, Everybody's Fool, in a warehouse in Maryland. Russo has recovered enough to discuss the idea of signed copies and what to do with his own personal archive. ----more----This idea of looking back leads us, neatly enough to, Everbody's Fool and the challenge of sequels: the book continues the story of Russo's masterpiece (to my mind) Nobody's Fool from 1993. From here we talked:
- what had Russo forgotten about his charaters, and what he hadn't
- what had changed since 1993?
- timing, iPhones and when is Everybody's Fool set?
- time and writing: what's the deal?
Part 2 of several to follow.
For the 100th episode of This Writing Life, we celebrate with a very special instalment. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Russo reads from his wonderful, warm, funny and mordant new book Everybody's Fool. A sequel to one of our favourite novels - 1993's Nobody's Fool - it returns the reader to the life, opinions and travails of Donald 'Sully' Sullivan in the small upstate New York town of North Bath.
In this scene from the distant past (the character Wirf Saks has died by Everybody's Fool), Sully and Wirf settle down in the local bar to discuss the sex addiction of the irrepressible Carl Roebuck.
Enjoy.
The final part of This Writing Life's interview with Matt Haig (about Christmas, mental health, the internet) begins with Magic Tweets (about Rupert Murdoch), Tweeting addiction and the inveterate competitiveness of writers. ----more----From here we drifted towards:
- internet joy and internet anxiety
- experiencing and surviving anxiety
- Bret Easton Ellis' master Tweeter
- Matt Haig's Twitter etiquette
- Holly Herndon, children and technological ambivalence
- Sylvia Plath, John Clare and the link between creativity and mental illness
- reading and Matt Haig's recovery from depression
- which books and writers helped Matt
- the importance and salvation of poetry
Part 3 of This Writing Life's interview with Matt Haig changes tack from memories of Christmas past to consider Matt's experience of depression that inspired his non-fiction memoir Reasons to Stay Alive. We begin by discussing general attitudes towards mental health, not least among politicians, before exploring the effect that Reasons to Stay Alive has had on Matt and his readers. ----more----From there we talked about:
- the internet and mental illness
- Matt and Twitter
- The Trump-Farage Effect: 'We are not in an age of consensus anymore. We are in an age of strong opinions'
- Haig reviews his literary career
- the relationship between depression, social life and writing
- books and masculinity: Haig vs Twitter
- gender and mental health
- 'It would be a scary thing, President Trump'
Part 4 of 4 to follow.
A very happy new year to all! We open 2017 by returning back to 2016. This Writing Life's interview with Matt Haig was a game of two halves. For the first 45 minutes, we discussed Christmas, inspired by his excellent festive children's story, A Boy Called Christmas. In the second half, we turned our attention to depression inspired by Matt's excellent memoir about depression, anxiety and his own experience of mental illness, Reasons to Stay Alive. In this short taster, Matt recalls how reading helped him in the early days of recovery: what he read and what he found he could not read.
Part 3 and 4 will follow.
Part two of This Writing Life’s special Christmas interview with Matt Haig (for his Christmas fable A Boy Called Christmas) starts with the magic of stockings at the end of the bed, continues as a litmus test of Haig’s childhood happiness and heads towards the Haig family rituals. There are memories of teenage bad behavior before a return to Christmas as seen through the eyes of Haig’s own children. Haig talks films (above all, It’s a Wonderful Life) and books, before we explore the ‘Father’ of ‘Father Christmas’. There are discussions about festivity and feeling good, commerce at Christmas and what presents mean. Matt talks about balancing light and dark in A Boy Called Christmas for American audiences, before we end with how to survive the most wonderful time of the year.
A new year part 3 to follow in 2017.
Matt Haig has many and diverse talents. Children's author, Young Adult novelist, non-fiction bestseller, for his extraordinary book on depression, Reasons to Stay Alive. Over the past two years, he has added Christmas storyteller to his CV. First with A Boy Called Christmas (2015), and now a sequel: The Girl Who Saved Christmas. ----more----
I talked to Matt about A Boy Called Christmas at the end of last year. In the first of three parts we discuss the origins of the novel, about optimistic fiction, recollections of Christmases past, what Santa Claus means to Matt, mid-life crises, superheroes, the dangers of literary typecasting, depression and writing, and magic.
Most importantly Matt answers the BIG question: do you believe in Father Christmas?
Read more about A Boy Called Christmas: here.
In a postscript to This Writing Life's interview chat with Rebecca Thornton, about her debut novel The Exclusives, we talk about her writing life: loneliness, drawing the curtains during the day, chatting at the school dates, disconnecting from Facebook, procrastination, Massive Attack, writing with two young sons desperate to bthe laptop. Most importantly she answers the question: do you like writing?
Part 3 of Rebecca Thornton's interview with This Writing Life begins with a discussion of the Faber Academy writing course, which kickstarted the composition of her debut novel, The Exclusives. After some kind words about Esther Freud and Tim Lott (see part one for more about Tim), Rebecca talks about how the course works, including the terror of reading her romantic comedy in front of her class. ----more----From here we moved to:
- what kept her writing when she was most discouraged?
- hearing the 'voice' of the novel
- was writing cathartic?
- Rebecca's writing routine
- curtains and night writing
- what was it like to finish your first novel?
- polishing and after-writing: getting the novel in shape
- the return of the psychological thriller
- that 'horrific' second novel...
- babies and writing
- journalism and Jordan
- parenthood and writing
- her Guardian article about marrying into a Jewish family
There is a short PS to come...
Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Rebecca Thornton, about her debut novel The Exclusives, begins with a discussion of what perfection means to her characters. This is not something we know much about at This Writing Life. But anyway. Rebecca compares her feelings as a teenager to what perfection means to her today as a writer and mother. ----more----From here we reverse towards the evolution of The Exclusives itself, from romantic comedy to dark-hearted thriller. We plunge on to:
- writing as a form of therapy
- withholding in narrative and content
- fronts, repression and fear - at school and in fiction
- judgment and teenage life
- how has school changed over the past two decades?
- the portrayal of mental illness in The Exclusives
- is This Writing Life asking too many questions?
- 'That's a bit terrifying': what Rebecca's husband thought of The Exclusives
- 'My life is over': teenage angst and teenage pressure
-
checkyourprivilege: is The Exclusives too exclusive?
- Mallory Towers etc: fictional models?
- Rebecca's early writing experiments (teen erotica)
- how does it feel (to write)?
- anxiety, paranoia, disaster, thrillers (and children)
Part 3 of 3 to follow.
Rebecca Thornton's The Exclusives is a debut novel: a thriller about friendship, paranoia, success and secrets set in an all-girls boarding school. This Writing Life didn't need a second invitation to talk to Rebecca at her publishers in central London. ----more----The setting was a glass meeting room, which later inspired a lesson in how Thornton's mind works like her fiction. But after a little to and fro about swearing, we began by discussing the intensity of writing the novel itself. This had something to do with readers' fascination with the possible autobiographical elements of the story: Thornton like her heroines went to an exclusive boarding school. From here we touched upon:
- how it felt to release the novel out into the world
- endless re-writes
- The Exclusives: the summary
- Faber Academy, Tim Lott, Esther Freud
- from romance to psychological thriller
- 'Female friendships are not always very funny'
- putting the bored into boarding school
- school or prison?
- Thornton's school days and persona
- after-school life and returning to schooldays
- heroines: Freya and Josephine
Part 2 of 3 to follow.
Our next guest on This Writing Life is Rebecca Thornton, whose debut novel The Exclusives was published in paperback earlier this year. We talked in a glass-fronted meeting-room at her London publisher, twenty7. The setting played its part when I asked about Rebecca's decision to write a thriller packed with more menace, paranoia and betrayal than a game of murder in the dark at Trump Towers.
Part 1 of 3 to follow.
Neil Richards, Matt Costello and This Writing Life bid adieu to Hotel Xanadu in the third part of their podcast about cosy mysteries, the Cherringham crime series and working as a writing team. Our final instalment begins with a brief discussion of one of their many sidelines: writing videogames.----more----
From here we skipped to:
- the multi-media project they couldn't talk about it at the time
- working on set (with actors)
- fun, work, work as fun
- technology, Skype and working face to face
- relationship advice: writing teams
- long-distance, Transatlantic writing relationships
- Costello's writing life and advice
- Costello and Richards' favourite books
You can purchase Dead in the Water: here.
Part two of This Writing Life's chat with ace writing team Neil Richards and Matt Costello opens with a discussion of their first novel, Dead in the Water. Set in their bucolic, fictional Cotswolds village of Cherringham, it stars Jack, a retired New York City cop, and Sarah, a single-mother of two. Having teamed up as crime fighters in previous episodes, the dynamic duo eventually reunites to solve the mysterious death of a local teacher. ----more----Matt explains how the story - involving drugs, the resurgence of raves and hot-dog vans - began. From here we moved to:
- the joys and challenges of collaboration
- how walks, museums and taking a break helps creativity
- how do novels differ from shorter works
- humour, seriousness and cosy mysteries
- how do you keep a crime series fresh for readers new and old?
- will Jack and Sarah ever fall in love?
- motherhood and crime?
- does writing help Matt and Neil?
- how did Matt and Neil meet?
- misery in company: the pros and cons of collaboration?
Part 3 of 3 to follow.
This Writing Life has talked to a pair of writers before: David Mitchell and Michel Faber. But Neil Richards and Matt Costello are the first bona fide writing team. We meet, ostensibly, to discuss Dead in the Water, the first full-length novel in their already successful 'Cherringham' e-book crime series: previous episodes have consisted of short stories and novellas.
----more----But we quickly branch off to talk about their collaborative work for television, video games - and on the day we met - a top secret movie project. After a little podcast skulduggery, we begin by gently denigrating Gloucester, pondering Xanadu, displaying American and reserved English accents before starting at the beginning of their writing partnership. From here, we turn to:
- the background and evolution of 'Cherringham'
- death and crime in the Cotswolds
- how do we define 'cosy' crime?
- the relative skills of Costello and Richards
- writing for television v novels
- pacing and the art of the e-cliffhanger
- 'I have been scared of writing novels': Neil Richards on learning to writing prose
- the writing relationship: who's the boss and work schedules
- cricket or baseball: American v British voices
- collaboration: creation, structure and editing
Part two of three to follow.
As a trailer for This Writing Life's next interview - with crime fiction, video game and script-writing team Neil Richards and Matt Costello - our dynamic duo talk about the benefits of a late start, and offer a little advice for budding authors.
The fourth and final part of DBC Pierre's conversation with This Writing Life podcast begins with a discussion of fraud. Pierre writes about this at the start of his excellent writing guide, Release the Bats, and hit headlines following his Man Booker victory for seemingly defrauding a former friend out of his house. ----more----After some Jeffrey Archer preamble, Pierre responds ('I think I can be concise'):
- 'There are in the liar and the bullshitter a great many qualities which are useful to fiction writing...It is incredibly useful to have been a bullshitter, but at a certain point you need to have made the distinction between what is and isn't.'
- 'I wasn't a happy fraud...You need to remain ignorant for that to work...'
- 'People bullshit because their worlds aren't good enough...'
- 'Life's too complicated to be disappointing'
- living up to Vernon God Little: Pierre on his life of writing
- parties, agents and writing with people looking over your shoulder
- the future (and beer at the Faber Social)
Release the Bats is published by Faber & Faber and can be bought: here.
'I don't believe in inspiration.' So says DBC Pierre at the start of his third This Writing Life podcast, brought to you after two small party political broadcasts. Following a little drug chatter, I ask how Pierre disorients his senses these days? ----more---- From here we meander to:
- how Pierre gets down to writing
- how Pierre started writing, circa Vernon God Little
- 'I had a mindset that writing was for masters...and would be way above me'
- Pierre's handwriting challenge
- how did Pierre get over his literary anxiety?
- 'I wrote in anger one day...'
- who was on Pierre's jury of imaginary readers?
- Pierre as one of life's observers
Part four of four to follow.
Richard Russo has written 11 books, 8 screenplays, won a Pulitzer Prize (for Empire Falls), and most recently published the excellent Everybody's Fool, the sequel to one of This Writing Life's favourite novels, Nobody's Fool.
When we met in London, we talked about everything from book signings to working with Paul Newman. Russo also discussed Clinton-Trump and the 2016 US Presidential Race. This Writing Life posts it now as a Special Podcast. The exchange begins with some general chatter on confusion and self-made men.
Our lengthy interview with Richard will be posted later in 2016.
With a week to go before polling day in 2016's US Presidential Election, This Writing Life posts the first of two special 'Clinton-Trump' podcasts. The first is part of a longer and forthcoming interview with journalist Gary Younge about his extraordinary book, Another Day in the Death of America.
At the end of our conversation, I asked Younge for his take on Trump vs Clinton. Having spent well over a decade reporting on American politics, society and culture for the Guardian, he had plenty to say.
The rest of the interview will be posted later in November.
In his second This Writing Life podcast, DBC Pierre talks learning to write by remembering what he has read. For dialogue, he looked to Len Deighton. ----more---- After a discussion of how written speech differs from spoken speech, he moved towards:
- tell vs show: writing dialogue in Vernon God Little
- is Pierre an instinctive writer?
- 'I am going to speak differently to you than I will to the Queen or a child or an enemy'
- how flamenco on late night Spanish television helped Pierre find his voice in Release the Bats
- 'rocket fuel': Pierre's enthusiasm for writing and writers
- what stops Pierre writing?
- dog racing, writers and nature
- 'I am the black sheep in the family. It is my job to have lots of promise and not to fulfil it.'
- Pierre's father and family hierarchy
- did Pierre worry that analysing the creative process might wreck the creative process?
- Pierre on 'the century of neuropsychology'
- 'Nothing has changed in human nature in two and half million years'
- 'Our anger and conflict...drive us to write'
- does writing help?
Part three to follow.
Part one of DBC Pierre's interview chat with This Writing Life podcast starts in media res. With a fan blowing our hair in attractive fashion (apologies for the whoosh behind the voices), we talked on a lovely summer's day at a London hotel. Pierre was in town to launch his new book, Release the Bats, an exuberant, personal and inspiring writing guide, with hints of memoir. A call-to-pen with hints about his colourful life. ----more----
As the tape tolls, we are talking about talking about Will Carruthers' memoir, Playing the Bass with Three Hands: Pierre was to appear at an event with the former Spiritualized bassist that evening. After some meditation on the hotter aspects of being a bass player (some caution is advised), we meander via music, the composition of Pierre's Man Booker winning Vernon God Little, and Pierre: the frustrated rock star. From here we saunter to:
- Pierre's own music taste
- why Pierre doesn't listen to music: 'The music provides a soundtrack that makes the writing better than it is'
- why Pierre writes throughout the night
- Pierre's routine for writing Vernon God Little
- 'You can go crazy at night and let yourself fly'
- losing the plot and creating a plot: Pierre, licence and liminal spaces
- writing vs editing
- to plan or not to plan, that is the question...
- non-fiction vs fiction
- why write Release the Bats?
- Pierre on creative writing courses
Part 2 of 4 to follow.
The next guest on This Writing Life is DBC Pierre, Man Booker winning novelist, literary rogue and now writing guide supremo thanks to the excellent, ebullient, Birthday Party-quoting call-to-pens, Release the Bats. In this trailer, I ask whether writing ever helps him feel, think or 'be' better. Cue tall tales of a naked Thomas Wolfe fondling himself by a filing cabinet.
Part four of Rosa Rankin-Gee's This Writing Life podcast interview opens with some bad pronunciation, some Borges, a little light reading and some Vocalzone throat lozenge chatter. Rosa really begins by examining the idea of imagining the worst things possible as a way of forestalling the worst reality possible. ----more----
- too much too young? Are children today under too much pressure?
- what Rosa knew as a teenager?
- reinvention, social media, the internet and youth
- is there an innocence in The Last Kings of Sark that would be impossible in ten years?
- what next for Rosa Rankin-Gee (that difficult second novel)?
- The Book Club: Rosa's Parisian salon/soiree...
- DJ Rankin-Gee: 'Craig David's all over their boink....'
- Rankin-Gee en Paris
- The Goldfinch, Yoko Ono, Mary Renault: final book chatter and hissing
Rosa Rankin-Gee's website is: here.
Part three of Rosa Rankin-Gee's conversation with This Writing Life podcast about her debut The Last Kings of Sark begins with love triangles, friendship triangles, family triangles, third wheels and intense feelings. ----more----
Other topics include:
- being an only child
- is The Last Kings of Sark a lesbian novel?
- a short hiatus while we suck on myrrh - the sound quality may improve
- second novels and Rankin-Gee's style
- is Rosa Jude?
- Rosa, readers and reviews
- a little Sark-asm
- Maggie Gee - is having literary parents a help or hindrance?
- Rosa's formative reading habits
Part four to follow.
Part two of Rosa Rankin-Gee's chat with This Writing Life begins with a discussion of the coming-of-age-story (in her case, debut novel The Last Kings of Sark). ----more----From there it was a sprightly leap across echoes of Dickens and metaphorical islands to:
- stages in and of life
- 'I am fascinated with the idea of bluffing and posturing...'
- when does a doctor - or a novelist - become a doctor - or a novelist?
- how does Rosa write (in Paris)?
- writing for money (the day job in copy-writing) v writing for art (the other day job)
- $ million idea: canned applause and booing for writers at work
- living in France, speaking in French and jokes about Joseph Conrad
- vegetarian restaurants, Hemingway, racist street signs and Parisian chit chat
- sadness, marriage, Scott Fitzgerald's balls: A Moveable Feast chit chat
- Bonjour Tristesse: writing about the past
- Rosa-tinted spectacles, Rosa on the Rise and other Rosa-related puns
- obsession with the passing of time
Part three of four to follow.
Rosa Rankin-Gee was one of the first guests on This Writing Life when the podcast was still a glint in its host's eye. We spoke ostensibly about her excellent debut novel The Last Kings of Sark but quickly widened the focus to the challenges of being a first-time and very young novelist, to sitting in large publishing boardrooms and sucking strange sweets. ----more----
Part one begins with some idle digital recording chatter - how DO you pronounce WAV? - followed by some idle corporate boardroom chatter, before our host finally gets down to the business of introductions, Bill Callahan, brilliant thoughts, and writer's notebooks. From there we hopped to:
- obsession with youth
- dreams, writing and the perfect thriller
- how do you open a first novel
- how do you create a central character in your first novel?
- structuring your first novel
- memory, distortion and poor question-asking
- Sark, cooking and the real-life inspiration for the novel
- writing vs memory-loss
- Jude and Rosa, life and art
- first novels
Part two to follow.
As a trailer for the next writer to face the onslaught that is This Writing Life podcast, Rosa Rankin-Gee reads from her debut novel, The Last Kings of Sark (Virago).
This was one of the first This Writing Life podcasts recorded, and remains a favourite of your host.
Part one to follow. You can learn more about Rosa at her website: here.
Bill Clegg ends his marathon appearance on This Writing Life podcast by talking about his (then) recent Man Booker longlisting for his first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family? Alternating between his twin literary hats - writer and agent - he talks the pros of literary prizes and literary culture in general. ----more---- After the shock of learning that I reviewed Did You Ever Have a Family?, Clegg moved onto a broader discussion of attractive misery in contemporary American fiction:
- who's sadder: Clegg or Hanya Yanagihara (or neither)?
- the problem with novels with the word 'Girl' in the title
- the Ashley Madison debacle
- Adrian Piper's 'Everything' (Will be Taken Away)
- Bam!, Black Swans and age-old advice: how to deal with the unexpected
- self-consciousness about self-consciousness: Foster Wallace, WS Merwin, perhaps?
- the future and some literary recommendations
Part four of Bill Clegg's This Writing Life podcast, begins with a discussion about paying attention to the workings of our own consciousness. After a critique of Alan Ball's Six Feet Under (Clegg's working out box set of choice) we moved to: ----more----* death as existential wake-up call * family, blame and redemption: Clegg's relationship with his father * suffering, realism and writing: Clegg on Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life * addiction, control and trauma (and writing) * does telling it slant help Clegg resolve his own problems? * Clegg on Thomas Hardy * regret in Did You Ever Have a Family? * a tragedy told through its aftermath? * the persistence of childhood embarrassment
The final part to follow.
Part 3 of Bill Clegg's chat with This Writing Life podcast about his debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family?, begins with the personal: 'There are some people born restless. I certainly was.' ----more---- From here we compare childhood ambitions with Clegg's actual route to becoming a successful literary agent in New York City. The conversation continues:
- chocolate lab puppies, work and the strange, epic story of how he became an agent
- what's the New Yorker? Clegg's introduction to New York City life
- zombie vampires: do agents have to be cynical?
- 'Don't overthink it': from agent to novelist
- writing to carpentry: the evolution of Clegg's characters
- did writing a novel help Clegg make sense of his upbringing and hometown?
- reading as a form of sceptical engagement
- fear and judgement vs curiosity: Clegg's childhood
- the obligatory, short, mention of Donal Trump
Part 4 of 5 to follow.
In part two of Bill Clegg's chat with This Writing Life's podcast, we begin with the trauma (a house fire on the night before a wedding) that propels his debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family? ----more----From there (soundtracked by some funky flutes) we move to:
- how the novel began and progressed for Clegg
- first vs third person narration
- Wilkie Collins, collective truths and the range of voices
- what we think about each other, for right and mainly wrong
- empathy, judgement and global problems
- why small-towns are a metaphor for the entire world
- town vs wealthy, weekending outsiders
- small-town life and small-town thinking?
- how do you break family destiny and leave small-towns?
Part 3, with more funky background music and cell phone buzzes, to come.
This Writing Life podcast talked to Bill Clegg shortly after the publication of his first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family? Just longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, it was one of the year's most intriguing debuts. ----more----It begins with a tragedy: a house-fire that kills a family on the eve of a wedding in a small-town in rural America. What holds the interest is not the mystery of what happened, but the vapour trails of grief that float between the survivors: above all June, the mother of the bride, and Lydia, the mother of the groom.
During a lengthy conversation, we discussed his childhood, the death of his father, his successful career as a literary agent, the drug addiction that almost lost him everything, not to mention his more recent adventures as a writer.
In part one of Episode 68, backed by some nice hi hat cymbal, we talked about:
- economics and small-town America
- Bill Clegg's own childhood in small-town America
- how rural small-town America is changing from farmlands to weekending New Yorkers
- love, envy and resentment in Sharon, Connecticut (Clegg's hometown)
- the pros and cons of growing up in small-town America
- car crashes, anonymity v small-town fame (how many times can I write small-town)
- Did You Ever Have a Family? chatter (with some Stevie Wonder in the background)
- fiction v non-fiction
- addiction, sobriety, writing and coming to terms with the past:
- tragedy, addiction and Did You Ever Have a Family?
- the death of fathers and writing the novel
Part 2 to follow.
In this prologue to our next guest on This Writing Life podcast, Bill Clegg answers my pilfered Paris Review question: is there one writer that inspired you to write? Find out by clicking play. In the next episode, we start our lengthy conversation about Bill's Man Booker longlisted debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family?
In the final part of Laura Lippman's This Writing Life podcast, we begin by discussing trigger warnings: the fine line between offensiveness and individual sensitivities. ----more----From there we move to:
- how violence is portrayed on the news
- secrets and Lippman's family
- 'I was brought up by Southern parents. Don't ask anybody their age. Never talk about money. I think part of the reason I became a journalist it gave me license was to ask those questions...'
- Lippman and her heroines: Tess Monaghan and Luisa Brant
- Lippman and her father
- history, taking down statues and the politics of women on $10
- 'We are doing something right now, today, that is going to seem despicable in 50 years...'
- posterity, Lippman and crime fiction
- crime v literary fiction: Lippman and the never-ending genre-wars
- 'There are so many books. You have to be arrogant to have anything to say...'
- after some blatant references to The Wire, Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, we move to the social realist novel
- a little afterword on James Crumley
- 'Elmore Leonard is my role model'
- George Pelecanos, Elmore Leonard and Lippman's cute nose...
- what next?
Laura Lippman's website is: here.
Part two of Laura Lippman's chat with Writing Life Podcast about her new novel Wilde Lake begins with the real-life district of Columbia, where Lippman grew up. ----more---- Other Wilde Lake High School alumni include Edward Norton and Michael Chabon. After some insight into the impact of babysitting on Norton's early acting talent, we talked about:
- the utopian impulses behind (and deceitful subtext beneath) the creation of Columbia
- 'We were so self-congratulatory about not seeing race'
- the 'You know you grew up in Columbia when...' Facebook page
- 'In writing this book, I came to the realisation that I am very much the product of that high school': Lippman on Columbia's doomed experiment
- innocence, childhood and changing moral values
- race, liberalism and the problems of good intentions
- race, height, gender: the challenges of unacknowledged prejudice
- the (Twitter) politics of Calvin Trillin's poem about Chinese food
Part 3/3 to follow.
Laura Lippman is the author of 22 crime novels. In addition to her series featuring private investigator Tess Monaghan, she has written nine standalones. Lippman's new book Wilde Lake falls into the latter category. As often is the case with her one-offs, the context is deeply personal. Lippman herself grew up near the actual Wilde Lake in the Maryland district of Columbia. ----more----
In this first of three episodes, we begin by talking transatlantic travel, skip elegantly to Wilde Lake itself. From there it is but a few sentences to discussing the following:
- how books change when the author begins to discuss them
- what Wilde Lake is about
- the echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird
- the thematic inspiration for the storyline
- rape allegations, the truth and historical sex crimes
- are perpetrators innocent until proven guilty?
- has society been changed by the Savile and Cosby cases?
- 'how many slaves did our ancestors own?': how should families confront dark corners of their past?
- how morality changes over time
Part 2/3 to follow.
Laura Lippman's website is: here.
As a trailer for the next guest on This Writing Life Podcast, the wonderful American crime writer Laura Lippman reads from her new novel, Wilde Lake.
Parental advisory notice: there is a gratuitous mention of a de-trousered Bill Clinton.
Part one of three to follow.
In this second Writing Life Podcast Extra, Vendela Vida offers some TV recommendations and asks the questions for a change. Your host blethers on...
In this first of two Writing Life Podcast extras, Vendela Vida recalls meeting the real rock star Patti Smith - who appears as herself in The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. Vida also discusses how Dave Egger's A Hologram for a King changed her last novel.
The final part of ThisWriting Life's cheerful conversation with Vendela Vida begins with wondering whether writing is a form of narcissism and ends with a discussion of parenthood.----more----In between we explored:
- 'There are people doing good in the world...and I am just sitting here thinking my thoughts. That's why you need to keep a sense of humour about what you are doing.'
- Vida on her children's literacy programme, 826 Valencia, and The Believer magazine
- 'Writing can be very lonely...We read to know we're not alone, and we write to know we're not alone'
- the importance of helping young people develop writing skills
- 'If my own kids wanted to be a writer, I might say, Gosh, there are so many jobs out there.'
- on her early writing career: 'Trying to pay grad school loans, working a job, waitressing. 5 o'clock in the morning pretending to write to justify the rest of my existence. That is not fun...'
- on whether she had a choice to be a novelist
- how do writers (try to) make a living?
- how does Vida fit it all in?
- what's next?
- family and motherhood.
Two short Vida 'This Writing Life podcast-extras' will follow next week. Her latest novel is The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, available in paperback from Atlantic.
Vendela Vida reads a second passage from her excellent new novel, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. It begins after a little banter and a glass of water.
In part three of This Writing Life's chat with American writer Vendela Vida about her latest novel The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, we begin by asking: 'Why Casablanca?'
----more----After some exploration of labyrinths (and stupid questions), we move onto:
- art, stories and constant change
- 'A story is something that happens, after which nothing is ever the same'
- characters (and Vida) on the verge of...adulthood?
- parenthood, acting, and playing at selfhood
- Reeves, Aretha, Sabine: the various selves of Vida's heroine
- 'I know what her name is...but I'm not going to tell you'
- humour, trauma and The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty
- 'Distract, distract, distract': that's entertainment?!
- Vida on Amy Schumer, comedy and the internet
- why Vida goes to the library to use the internet
- 'If I want to read a book at night, if I had internet, it would not happen'
- Vida's preparation for a cultural evening (and why she hates dinner parties)
Part 4 (of 4) to follow.
In this mini-podcast, Vendela Vida explains why Joan Didion is a formative literary hero, and why long-form interviews are great. Phew.
Part three to follow.
Part 2 of Vendela Vida's Writing Life podcast begins with a discussion of performance: parenthood as performance, self as performance, acting as performance. ----more----From here we sashay to:
- the problems of meditation
- when are we truest to ourselves?
- acting and announcing winners at the Academy Awards
- how parents should praise their children's art works
- writing and an essential self?
- writing by hand and how Vida writes her fiction
- fiction, rhythm and 'top spin'
- getting lost in life and art
- Vida's unfinished novels
- writing in the second person (singular)
- look in the mirror and say, You can do this...
- gender and travel
Part 3 to follow.
Vendela Vida is a novelist, editor (of The Believer magazine), screenwriter, literacy advocate (via 826 Valencia). She is also a wife, of the similarly busy writer Dave Eggers, and mother. ----more----Given all these roles, it seems miraculous that she has written one book much less six, including the novels And Now You Can Go, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers.
We met to discuss her newest book, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. Set in Casablanca, we follow a young woman on the run from herself. This figurative sense of escape is made real when her backpack is stolen from a hotel lobby, including all the documents that establish her identity. Her subsequent adventures include absurd exchanges with the local place, even more absurd conversations on a film-set, where, almost inevitably, she plays a stand-in for someone else.
Funny, parenthetical, and quietly moving, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is also autobiographical, Vida revealed in this first episode. At a loss where to start I began by asking about the title, a quote from Rumi. We moved onwards to:
- finding titles in poetry
- the literary potential of diving
- our (anonymous) lead character
- a brief summary of the novel
- loneliness, travel and identity
- why Casablanca? 'I went to Casablanca...'
- how losing a backpack, novel and possessions inspired a novel about losing a backpack...
- why the New York Times means nothing to Casablanca's police
- how autobiographical is the novel?
- the strange power of losing objects, including unfinished novels
- film crews: why unreality can look more real than reality
Part 2 to follow.
As a trailer for the next subject on This Writing Life, Vendela Vida reads from her latest novel, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty - just released in paperback via Atlantic Books in the United Kingdom.
In the final part of David Gates' episode of Writing Life, we begin by exploring the question of religion that we failed to address in Part 4. 'I am not a religious person. I am to some degreee obsessed with it.'
----more---- From there we move to:
- American gospel songs and the transcendent
- Gates' links to The Mayflower ('he was the first man hanged in the New World')
- 'It's an interest I have cultivated to make myself interesting'
- Gates on Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton (from 2015)
- David Gates' writing life - pen or computer?
- 'When I am desperate, I will pretty much try anything'
- Gates on the internet
- (finally) does music help or hinder?
In the fourth and penultimate part of our podcast with David Gates, we set out by talking about money - how to earn it, keep writing, earn money from writing.
----more----Gates recalls his 29 years at Newsweek before shifting to:
- how long he can write at any one stretch
- being a relatively late-starter
- 'There is something quaint and old-fashioned about being a writer'
- Desolation Row - music vs literature
- literary critical ambitions: dissertations and elaborate theories
- Ann Beattie - marriage and inspiration
- 'I was astonished that she was making literature out of lives like ours...It never occurred to me'
- working off influence: 'I cannot be Beckett...How can I be me?'
- Barthelme, Pynchon - postmodernism?
- Gates and music: 'I can see why you would devote your life to that if you could have that hour of absolutely transcendent beauty'
- Gates and religion: 'I am so glad you asked about that...'
- Gates, romance, divorce: 'Do we have trouble with intimacy? Did I sit around thinking too much?'
- characters and temporariness.
The fifth and final part to follow.
Part 3 of David Gates' conversation with This Writing Life starts with a discussion of 'story' - how Gates writes them and how people tell them (and how Gates writes about people telling them).
----more----* is Gates as self-destructive as his characters? * 'I am now enacting a wild moment' * Virginia Woolf's sly sense of humour * Gates other literary obsessions: Barthelme, Wodehouse, Rex Stout (yes, Rex Stout) * first person, third person - Gates and narrative * 'Banishment': writing from a woman's point of view * Gates' (former) shrink on self-portraits in his work * 'I like existence. I don't really know what the alternative is' * weather, winter and writing
Part 4 (of 5) to follow.
In the (summer delayed) second part of our chat with David Gates, we go on (we can't go) with the influence of Samuel Beckett and Jane Austen.
----more----* 'What I learned from Austen is that every character in a work thinks he or she is the protagonist' * fiction and the drama of conflicting visions * Gates, comedy and social combat in Emma * closed circuit minds and Gates' characters * 'I'm 69. I have calmed down, somewhat. It is not the buzzing anxiety of being in my 20s' * 'There is a way in which you always write like yourself' * 'There is a lot of sameness there' - Gates' literary riffs * Hitchcock, Rebecca, Psycho and Gates' obsession movie trivia * literary progression or repetition - Gates v Joyce and the Beatles * Back to Beckett - from prose to plays * 'I don't know how to say it without sounding pretentious' * Target or Tar-jay - jokes and time
Part three will be up in less than three months.
David Gates is a novelist, musician, journalist and teacher. His debut, Jernigan (1991), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. ----more----Another novel, Preston Falls, followed, along with two story collections. We met in London to discuss the second of these, A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me, and also return to Jernigan, both of which have been published in the United Kingdom by Serpent's Tail. We met at their London offices, beneath a slightly noisy fan, which I have tried to limit in the recording.
We began by talking about Rhinebeck, the small town in Upstate New York that is the setting for 'Banishment', which opens the new book. From there, we moved to:
- his idyllic upbringing in Clinton, Connecticut
- hunting, deer and totaled cars
- interviews and teaching literature
- 'I am more comfortable explaining other writers than I am trying to explain myself'
- which writer made David Gates want to write?
- 'At high school I wanted to be a writer as opposed to wanting to write'
- how Gates started to write
- 'It was a case of wanting to write, and needing to write. God that sounds so pretentious'
- hate mail, Newsweek and journalism
- Gates' first, unpublished, novel
- 'I was a dedicated writer for 11 years before Jernigan was published'
- 'You don't think there is an element of self-portraiture in these things?'
- women characters
As a taster for our next guest, the fine American novelist David Gates, who talks about his classic debut, Jernigan, his new story collection, A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me, and throws in a little analysis of the architectural politics of Donald Trump for free.
----more----
We battled a loud fan in Serpents Tail's offices, which needed a little post-production doctoring. I hope it doesn't spoil your listening pleasure.
Harry Parker begins the third and final part of his conversation with This Writing Life by considering the emotional effects of his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. ----more---- From there we moved onto:
- writing about the war from the perspective of the occupied and the insurgency
- 'All I wanted to do was tell a good story'
- 'There is this idea that laying mines is a really unfair way to fight wars. I always thought dropping a hellfire missile from a drone was also unfair.'
- futility and waste: 'War is just shitty'
- how much is a life worth: occupiers vs occupied?
- 'You can't just do these things with military force...'
- ISIS, Assad, Iraq: the future of the world
- 'If there are any themes they are compassion, recovery, but also trying to reframe how we view conflicts'
- what next for Harry Parker?
The second part of our chat with Harry Parker about his debut novel Anatomy of a Soldier begins with a cheerful discussion of decay and destruction of both objects or people. ----more----Parker prefers the word entropy while discussing his own recovery after the bomb blast that destroyed his legs. From there we moved onto: * can fiction resolve trauma? * questions of identity: what Parker sees in the mirror * 'fetish of the possible': prosthetic limbs as objects of hope * value and cost: how much is a human life worth? * anger and mourning: recovery and resolution * would Parker shake hands with the man who blew him up * 'If you are going to be stupid enough to be a soldier, then you have got to expect that this stuff might happen' * empathy or hatred: Parker's view of the insurgents * the Parker family's relationship with the British army * why did he join up * 'The best soldier is anti-war...' * 'It's bloody difficult': the challenges of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan * did the occupying armies make life better or worse? * fear and boredom: life as a soldier on duty
Harry Parker is a painter and, thanks to his debut Anatomy of a Soldier, a novelist. Before he was either of those, he served in the British Army, first in Iraq and later Afghanistan. ----more----His experiences form the basis for his first book - above all the day he stepped on a landmine planted near his camp in Helmand Province. Parker lost both his legs and endured years of intensive physiotherapy. These absorbing and moving scenes tell only part of Tom Barnes' fictional story. Anatomy of a Soldier is a courageous novel is all sorts of ways. It is narrated from the perspective of over 40 objects, ranging from shoes to bombs, infections to a handbag. It also attempts to present the occupation from the point of view of the occupiers - insurgents and moderates alike.
When we met at Faber & Faber's London offices, we began by discussing the challenges of writing a first book. 'I definitely felt like a beginner...I am not that well read.' Parker recalled dictating sections using transcription software in an attempt to get the story moving. From there we moved to:
- his first attempts at writing
- undertaking an Arvon course with Toby Litt
- to autobiography or not to autobiography
- the power of inanimate objects
- 'I tried to write a book about animals and it was pretty knickers'
- life v fiction: Harry Parker v Tom Barnes
- 'Is it memoir? Not for me...'
- a precis of Anatomy of a Soldier
- occupiers or the occupied?
- how autobiographical is Anatomy of a Soldier
- 'I didn't want to write about conflict in a way that sentimentalised it...but I did want to capture some of the excitement'
- 'I made a mistake': Parker's injuries
- how war objectifies
As a trailer for our next This Writing Life subject, soldier-novelist Harry Parker reads from his debut, Anatomy of a Soldier.
For further information, visit Faber & Faber: here.
In the fourth and final episode of our conversation with David Mitchell and Michel Faber, we kick off by talking author events and public readings with reference to The Bone Clocks and Mitchell's performative self. ----more----From there we move to bad readers:
- 'I have been to see very eminent, Booker Prize winning people at the Edinburgh Festival who are just ticking off another engagement in their tour, and you could tell they would rather be anywhere but there. I vowed I would never allow myself to get into that state of jadedness and alienation from the people who are actually buying my books' Faber
- Paul McCartney, Yesterday and intimacy
- 'I hate hotels' Faber
- 'We did stay in a brothel in Greece...' Faber
- what do Faber and Mitchell have in common...
- cities v countryside
- 'seem' and 'tranquil': words novelists should never use
- Ezra Pound's marginalia in The Waste Land
- 'If you are in a bad mood, it is difficult to read DH Lawrence' Faber
In the third, and penultimate, part of the David Mitchell and Michel Faber double-header, we start off by talking immortality and the status of fiction in the 21st century.----more---- 'I am something of an optimist,' Mitchell says before quoting the Rizzle Kicks' 'Skip to the Good Bit'. 'I like to think that starvation sharpens the appetite', he continues, arguing that the demands of the novel might seem more attractive the faster culture moves. 'The novel's imminent death, that bell has been rung so many times...'
From there, Faber talked final lines, starting with The Book of Strange New Things:
- Mitchell asked about naming chapter titles after the final lines of each chapter
- 'I think we are both concerned with the depth of the thing and layers, but we are both concerned with surface readability' Faber
- Faber vs 'serious literary writers'
- 'I think one way that serious literary writers have increasingly let down their readers and driven them into the arms of comfort fiction is by being insufficiently mindful of a reader's needs to fun and thrills' Faber
- Faber vs Joyce, Woolf and Modernism: 'If you weren't smart enough to get it, you were the Molochs or whatever...'
- Faber on John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses
- 'I think in old money we are talking about elitism and snobbery, self-promotion over those beneath you' David Mitchell
- Faber and Mitchell on science fiction (The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, Isaac Asimov) v 'high-brow' fiction
- reading as young people vs adults, Stephen King, pet cemeteries, Last Rites and Resurrections
- genre, cliché and fresh forms
- 'One thing that makes me uneasy is when reviewers talk about the stunning originality of our ideas' Faber
- 'Where have you come from, matey!' Mitchell
- Faber v VS Naipaul
- 'It's alarming if serious literature remains closed off to the potentials of narratives in recent times' Faber
- how they deal with being called incomparable, original etc
- 'I am happier than being called shite and a waste of space' Mitchell
- Ken Kesey, Mr Bean, and reading reviews...
- 'Reviews are not relevant to the work...' Faber
In part two of my interview with Michel Faber and David Mitchell, we begin by talking big books and the attempt to say everything in fiction. ----more---- As Mitchell puts it: 'I feel clobbered by the impossibility of translating into words as much of this enormous world we live in – the world itself and the human world with its subtly complex and sprawling Periodic Table of human emotions.'
After trading Freddie Mercury and Ringo Starr quotes, we returned to the idea that Faber had written his last novel and from there to:
- the consolations of poetry
- improvising The Book of Strange New Things
- Faber talks about caring for his wife, Eva, and the impact that her illness had on the novel's composition
- love letters and how letters transcend space, time and grief
- inciting the reader's emotions for certain characters
- the hubristic insanity of online Clouds.
I interviewed the novelists David Mitchell and Michel Faber for the Sunday Independent. Mitchell had not long since published The Bone Clocks, and Faber The Book of Strange New Things. ----more----They were old friends, something that was apparent from the moment I met them both at Durrants Hotel in central London. Before the interview proper, Faber asked to speak with Mitchell privately. They had not seen each other since Faber's partner Eva died only a few months before.
Faber would talk about his grief and the effect it was already having on his writing - he was writing poetry rather than prose, and indeed saw fiction, to which Eva was central, as a thing of his past. 'The Book of Strange New Things is my last novel, and we both knew that.'
You can hear Mitchell's tender, but firm response in part one of this lengthy conversation. The subjects under discussion also included Mitchell's re-mix and match approach to writing, their differing views to the contemporary world and readers, posterity and poetry.
We began by talking music - Miles Davis, playing Bartok, Late Junction, and listening to Krautrock while writing The Crimson Petal and The White.
I hope you enjoy. Part Two will be posted soon.
As a trailer for thisWriting Life Extra Special, Michel Faber and David Mitchell discuss their firstmeetings, before Faber pulls a mix-tape out of the bag.
I will post the rest of the interview -without doubt one of the most memorable ones I have ever been involved with -over the coming couple of weeks.
You can hear excerpts from Ohrwurm, Michael Faber's collaboration with Andrew Liles: here.
You can buy the album from Andrew Liles' website: here.
The final part of my conversation with Tom Drury at one of London's finest independent bookstores, Bookseller Crow. We start with the Q&A is included, alongside many and erroneous references to Tolstoy.
Bookseller Crow's website is: here.
A special episode in which I talk to Tom Drury, my favourite author of 2015, and possibly 2016 too, live in front of a lovely audience at the lovely Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace, one of the finest bookstores I know. ----more----
The first of three instalments, including a Q&A, we talk about: Drury's extraordinary 2015 in which almost all his books have been released in the UK; about his debut The End of Vandalism; the latest novel to be re-published, The Driftless Area; about movies, inspiration, mis-reading and even Mariella Frostrup.
Part 2 to follow.
The Bookseller Crow website is: here.
Part two of our interview with Kate Hamer begins with a discussion of Carmel, the 'Girl' in The Girl in the Red Coat. ----more----Having avoided the subject of her special power - spoilers alert etc - we move onto:
- love and its distortions
- 'I am not really interested in monsters': Hamer on her villains
- religion in the novel
- Hamer and the Gothic
- Beth, Carmel and the use of tenses
- parents making maps of their children's lives
- time in the novel
- stasis and waiting: the challenge of writing Beth's narrative
- 'For both of them it was like a journal of survival'
- how parenthood changes you
- parents and their parents
- is it an optimistic novel?
- how to end the novel
- Hamer's own childhood in Wales
- religion, mysticism and storytelling
- formative reading: 'Anything deeply, deeply tragic'
- influences and Hamer's current literary crush: Nicole Krauss
- why Hamer took so long to write her debut!
- life as a novelist and future plans
As a trailer for the second part of our interview with Kate Hamer, she reads a second excerpt from her Costa-nominated debut The Girl in the Red Coat.
If Kate Hamer's debut novel The Girl in the Red Coat sounds familiar, in part because it joins a horde of books with the word 'Girl' in the title,----more---- then readers might be pleasantly surprised by the strange story that awaits. By turns Gothic and emotional, funny and heard-breaking, supernatural and realistic, it tells the story of a kidnapped girl and a grieving mother that takes a number of strange turns.
When I met Kate at her London publisher, Faber and Faber, we began by talking about the (for her) strange, new prospect of discussing her first work of fiction. We then moved onto:
- her creative writing course at Aberystwyth
- answering personal questions
- reading work-in-progress aloud
- Kate described her novel
- 21st century fairytales
- where did the idea for the novel come from (I had to ask it!)
- writing and working through universal fears
- the cultural power of red coats
- the title of the novel
- using the word 'girl' in the title
- the character of the 'girl', Carmel
- to research or not to research
- the unknowableness of children and parents
- rural childhoods
- divorce
- the problem of spoilers
Kate Hamer's profile at Faber & Faber is: here.
As a trailer for my two part interview with Kate Hamer, author of the Costa-nominated debut The Girl in the Red Coat, she reads from the opening chapter.
The second part of my conversation with Sloane Crosley about her debut novel The Clasp began with us discussing how books give bookish young people a map for their lives. ----more---- Crosley read a passage from the novel - in which poor Victor prepares for being beaten up by meditating on just this sort of idea. We then moved onto:
- age, maturity and Don DeLillo's White Noise
- Crosley's love of The Dubliners and the story, 'Araby'
- how a desire to be funny and, separately, The Secret Garden inspired Crosley to write
- comedy: light and dark, joyful and sad
- 'I want to write something that's fun. I want to entertain'
- fiction, money, expanding horizons
- what next - essays or that album of ukulele music
- why Crosley is not a crime novelist
Read my review of The Clasp in The Independent: here.
Sloane Crosley is a journalist, essayist and now, thanks to her bright and funny debut The Clasp, a novelist. ----more----Sloane took a break from her home city New York to visit London and talk about the challenge of shifting gears from non-fiction to fiction. We began however with her own career as an interviewer, when she recalled a nightmare encounter with The Strokes' Julian Casablancas.
From there, we moved to:
- the difference between Crosley the essays and Crosley the novelist
- her first (and diabolical) unpublished novel: 'Nothing really happens'
- the importance of plot: 'I knew I didn't want a navel-gazing novel'
- what kind of book did Crosley want to write?
- 'I am a relatively rare bird in that I am a social writer'
- how vineyards and egg-timers helped Crosley finish The Clasp
- the importance of editing
- The Clasp: a summary
- Guy de Maupassant
- Maupassant's 'The Necklace' and the importance of short stories
- real and The Clasp
Part Two to Follow.
Sloane Crosley's website is: here.
In the final part of my discussion with Hanya Yanagihara on her (now) Man Booker shortlisted novel A Little Life, we continue our discussion of male repression. ----more----From there we take in:
- the 'wolflike' character of Caleb
- money as salvation
- why JB and Malcolm recede in the novel
- friendship and imagination
- Yangihara's own childhood in Hawaii
- 'My parents thought I might be a cartoonist'
- rebellion, careers and lax parents
- New York and restlessness
- 'I want to live in Asia'
- Yanagihara on Japan and her Japanese heritage
- Yanagihara on writing A Little Life
- readers' response to the novel
- A Little Life on television?
- the importance of work
- Hanya and the future
As short taster for the final part of our conversation with Hanya Yanagihara about A Little Life, here is a short consideration of children, convention and the novel as queer classic.
Part three to follow.
In the second part of our lunch-time chat with Hanya Yanagihara for the amazing A Little Life, we began by discussing how her second book was a reaction to her debut, the also amazing The People in the Trees.----more----
- ‘I just wanted to do something that felt a little dangerous, in a sense. I wanted to do something that felt inescapable.’
- ‘I wanted to try to create that quality of not being able to deny Jude’s life, because so much of Jude’s life is people denying him in one way or the other.’
- the exaggerated, overly intense feeling of the novel
- ‘I wanted the reader to feel drugged’
- her frustration with emotionally stingy novels that hold you at arm’s length
- the models, from visual art, that inspired A Little Life
- on technology the commodification of friendship
- jealousy, envy and the thrill of messy friendship
- Jude and the problems of being a friend
- talking, story-telling and the problem of personal pain
- was writing A Little Life therapeutic for Yanagihara herself?
- ‘It is a personal book, not so much based on content as based on ways of coming to terms with how you think about your own history’
- turning 40: what next?
- responses to A Little Life
- A Little Life as a New York novel
- Yanagihara and the laziness of brand names
- models for Jude
- ‘This book is a lot about absences’: family and surviving tragedy
- is A Little Life an angry book?
- on the institutions that failed Jude
- Yanagihara and the allure of male relationships
- ‘I find men very interesting because there are a lot of things as men you are never allowed to discuss, never allowed to feel and never allowed to put voice to.’
Part three will follow next week.
For the second Writing Life Podcast conversation with Hanya Yanagihara, we moved from tea at a posh London hotel to lunch at a posh(ish) London restaurant. This was not the only difference. Yanagihara had herself moved: jobs, from Conde Nast to the New York Times; and novels from her debut The People in the Trees to A Little Life, which has recently been long-listed for the Man Booker prize. ----more---- The conversation took place about a month before publication in the UK, but shortly after it was released in America to ecstatic reviews. I had recently been in New York and seen the novel everywhere. Well, mainly in bookstores, but on prominent display.
We begin - Hanya in mid-breadmunch - with her hero, Jude: 'I just wanted to write a character who never got better,' she tells me. From there, we shift focus to examine:
- how A Little Life challenges current American beliefs in character development
- on suffering and trauma
- 'I do think there is a point where some people are too damaged to be alive'
- Yanagihara's scepticism about therapy
- Jude as lovable and frustrating
- Jude vs The American Dream
- on the rituals of self-harm and cutting
- emotional overdrive: the challenge of reading A Little Life
- 'It’s an exaggerated book. There is nothing subtle about the book. I really push the conventions of a literary novel, and the restraint of the contemporary literary novel.'
- damage and the challenge of personhood
- 'I'm sorry' and challenges of friendship
- was writing a second novel easier than her debut
- writing process and research
- talking to people about careers
- how personal is A Little Life?
- (as I begin to serve carrots), how does friendship change over the decades?
- love, marriage, relationships and friends
- 'I am personally not interested in getting married'
Part 2 will follow in the nextfew days.
In part two of This Writing Life's podcast with Anna Smaill, we negotiate photographers, noises in RIBA and publicists to discuss her soon-to-be Man Booker longlisted debut novel, The Chimes.
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We began by talking about the taunting idea of the 'genius' and the tragedy of falling short. After mocking This Writing Life's mobile phone, Smaill then moved on to:
- the glories and downsides of genius
- 'I should probably say, I never actually thought I was a genius'
- did The Chimes address Smaill's own musical background?
- from Young Adult to something else: the writing process of The Chimes
- hearing the voice of her hero, Simon
- what Simon and Smaill have in common
- what was the challenge of writing fiction
- 'That sense of mystery animated it throughout'
- the (quasi-pseudo ) inspiration for 'Onestory', music as a form of social control
- Vladimir Gavreau, Infrasound and sonic weaponary
- music and control in Tokyo
- chaos, order and the problems of being an individual
- leaving home and Smaill's return to New Zealand
- New Zealand and the Man Booker: Hulme and Catton
- Eleanor Catton and controversy
- the state of the arts in New Zealand
- can a novel set in New Zealand break out internationally
- living with a novelist - Smaill on her husband, the writer Carl Shuker
- the future
Read Anna Smaill on her Man Booker nomination: here.
Anna Smaill is a New Zealand poet, academic and now Man Booker longlisted novelist. ----more----Her striking debut The Chimes has something of all parts of her career so far. There is music (Smaill trained as a violinist), lyricism (in evoking a world in which words have been replaced by melody), intelligence (in exploring grand narratives about connection, language, fundamentalism, technology, religion) and narrative drive: The Chimes is a love story and a dystopian mystery.
We met just before publication at RIBA. After some chatter about jet lag, we moved on to: * memories of London, where Smaill began The Chimes, before returning home to New Zealand * writing about London as an imaginative place * the soundtracks of London and Tokyo * German techno and Tokyo dancing vs Suede * Smaill pitches The Chimes to Stephen Spielberg (kind of) * the problems and danger of language in The Chimes * memory, communication and extremism * does The Chimes critique contemporary society? * the pros and cons of technology * the joy of reading * linear narrative vs fractured memory * Smaill's career anxieties * The Chimes returning Smail to the joys of childhood reading * from Phd thesis to novel writing * Smaill's musical past - playing the violin * crisis and giving up music * music and identity * music, emotion and the physical
I talk to Anna Smaill about her Man Booker longlist in The Independent: here.
In the final part of my Yanagihara trilogy from 2014, we continue to discuss her astonishing, unnerving debut The People in the Trees. ----more----Yanagihara begins by answering my question about whether her fiction sets out to astonish or unnerve. She continues by addressing at least some of the following:
- asking questions in art that she can't answer in life
- her (former) day job at Conde Nast Traveler
- about the advantages of a work-writing balance
- about the research needed to write The People in the Trees
- science and animal research
- Yanagihara's father and the evolution of science
- immigration and American science
- reactions from family and colleagues to The People in Trees
- 'I dont love the book either...'
- a preview of her next book, A Little Life
The interview ends with me gushing and the sounds of a hotel preparing for lunch. A new four part podcast about A Little Life will be released later this month.
In the second part of my nicely noisy conversation with Hanya Yanagihara about her debut novel The People in the Trees, we began by discussing ----more----the fictional tribe of Ivu'ivu who may have discovered the secret to extending the natural human life span. This leads to the following topics: * Western treatment of the elderly * 'I would rather be lead off into the jungle than sit in some horrible home for decades' * sexual rituals and moral relativism * judging Norton Perina * 'People do use being in a naive land, where they're the powerful one, as an excuse for all sorts of bad behaviour that they wouldn't do in their own society * the morality of sexual tourism * travel writing and the ethics of travel * 'I can't think of anything that are moral absolutes in every society' * children, sexuality and the problems of power * sex and imperialism * masculinity, editing and narrative in The People in the Trees * the neatness of theories
Hawaiian-born Hanya Yanagihara has been feted across the world, and longlisted for 2015's Man Booker Prize, for her amazing A Little Life. A Writing Life podcast is on the way.----more---- Last year Writing Life met Hanya for equally unsettling and unputdownable debut, The People in the Trees, the story of an anthropologist who travels to a tiny Micronesian island in the search for extended life and ends up accused of child abuse. In the first part of this three part interview, we met at a noisy Berners Street hotel. Hanya began by wondering whether she feels like a novelist. Then: * the importance of her work for Conde Nast in freeing her creatively * 'My only concern with the books is the world I create be as logical and complete as possible' * the conservative nature of modern publishing * laziness and taking 20 years to write a novel * the strain of writing as an old man * where did the idea for the novel come from? * the real-life story of the novel's inspiration, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek * researching Gajdusek, science and controversy * Hawaii, Barack Obama and Yanagihara's cultural background * 'I am the first generation of my family not to work in the fields' * colonisation in Hawaii and Yanagihara's fiction * The Tempest as inspiration for The People in the Trees * travel, Empire, science and transformation * love, loneliness, science and Yanagihara's central character, Norton Perina * genius and the 'Great Man' * Yanagihara's scientist father * moral questions: does the end always justify the means in scientific research * the vexed question of extended life * 'Nobody wants you to be old anymore'
Read my review in the Independent of The People in the Trees here.
A short taster for my first interview with Hanya Yanagihara from 2014 about her extraordinary debut novel, The People in Trees. A Writing Life podcast with Hanya about her differently extraordinary Man Booker longlisted A Little Life will be out last this month. For now, enjoy Yanagihara on encountering an Upper East Side book group.
In the third part of my conversation with Tom Drury, we rewind to his days studying creative writing with Robert Coover, 'a great teacher'. ----more---- After a discussion about realism and seriousness, Drury moves on to: * his early short stories * his attempt to write different novels * 'The kind of sentences you want to make, it is not a static thing' * David Hockney and Drury's interest in art * the visual nature of Drury's prose * time and breaking the fourth wall * why Drury continues to write about Grouse County * 'They are my repertory company' * why he chooses not to write about Grouse County * Drury's work in progress * inspiration from folk tales, magic and Faust * 'I have never written about Mephistopholes' * the role of religion in Drury's life and work * on death, 'the unknowable thing' * Drury's 'mid-western paranormal noir' * his own return to Iowa and the possible affect on his work * on interviews and readings
For my interview with Tom in the Sunday Independent, click: here.
A small taster for part three of my chat with Tom Drury. We talk MP3s, social networking, email, and The New Luddites from the third Grouse County novel, Pacific.
In the second part of my interview with Tom Drury, one of America's finest living novelists, we begin by discussing the railroad and its part in linking places like Grouse County to the outside world. ----more----We then moved on to: * his parents * radio, television and Drury's writing * the characters Dan and Louise Norman in The End of Vandalism * endings and alternate endings * 'In the old days, we tried in government to do good things for people. Why did we do that?' * media and modern American politics * 'It's like the Bookmobile. They were doing something good for people. I see less and less of that spirit.' * Drury on Obama * 'What are seeing is that our politics can be stopped' * 'I do feel like even the idea of doing good things for people has been devalued' * why Drury doesn't watch television * Drury on The Brothers Karamazov, Shakespeare, Don DeLillo's White Noise * Drury on comic, digressive fiction * 'I don't have a theme' * is Drury the most underrated novelist in America * 2015 is the year of Tom Drury (Awesome) * 'If you stay around long enough...one is constantly discovered' * 'I don't want to tell you what to think' * on Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata * on writing and money * 'If you start writing thinking you are going to earn a lot of money, maybe this isn't the best choice * life, death and dogs in Grouse County * 'Rather than write about international events I try to write about personal events and individual lives' * the character of Charles 'Tiny' Darling and Tom Drury * on the autobiographical nature of his work * the central character of Louise Darling * ambivalent feelings about Grouse County * 'I feel like there are parts of all of them that are connected to the life that I've had'
In this stopgap between podcasts, Tom Drury discusses the use of light in his debut novel, The End of Vandalism. 'I love that there would be some incidental lighting in the dark, like the dryer, you know?' Hear Antonya Nelson read Tom Drury's 'Accident at the Sugar Beet', which became an episode in The End of Vandalism, for the New Yorker here.
Tom Drury is the author of six astounding novels. Three - his masterpiece The End of Vandalism, Hunts in Dreams and Pacific - are set in the same fictional Grouse County area of Iowa - Drury's home-state. ----more----We met the day after The End of Vandalism was relaunched in the UK, in an Earls Court flat next door to Hattie Jacques' former residence. We began by discussing the forthcoming film of his 2006 book The Driftless Area, which Drury adapted himself. Having talked about the ways writing for the screen differed from writing for the page, we moved onto: * ideas of what is essential and inessential in Drury's stories * collaboration in film and fiction * the solitariness of being a writer * the economics of writing fiction * working for Los Angeles County Museum of Art * Drury's former career as a journalist * dialogue and how people speak * 'People answer questions that haven't been asked, and don't answer questions that have been asked...' * how Dan Norman from The End of Vandalism talks * Louise Darling, priests, God and attraction * 'God is like having an imaginary friend' * returning to his beginnings and The End of Vandalism's 21st birthday * Drury's 'Grouse County' series * the past and the present in smalltown America * from conversation to spareness - the evolution of Drury's style * With The End of Vandalism, I really got into letting them speak' * 'Why is this bucket in the yard?' * 'Dowel rods I always found kind of humorous' * 'Grouse County', Iowa and the place of place in Drury's work * cars * Drury's childhood in Swaledale, Iowa * Drury's childhood reading * reading, escapism and 'the world beyond' Iowa * 'Practically everything lay outside my experience' * London, Berlin and Drury's return to Mason City, Iowa * how has the real 'Grouse County' changed? * the Bookmobile and why Drury wanted to be a writer * 'Books are so important we are going to send out a truckful of them' * the slow erosion of rural America * Drury, Bob Dylan and the grain elevator * 'And you think there is no excitement in that landscape.'
In the next episode of This Writing Life, James Kidd talks to the extraordinary American novelist Tom Drury, author of The End of Vandalism, Hunts in Dreams, Pacific and The Driftless Area, among others. ----more----In this trailer for our two-part conversation, mainly about the British re-release of The End of Vandalism Drury discusses his love of music. Having stumbled over Druryish, Druryean - Druryesque, we move from Led Zeppelin to Roxy Music. Brian Eno's hair makes a feeling appearance (what else is new) as Drury considers how music transports the imagination. To read my own review of The End of Vandalism in The Independent, click this.
The second part of my chat with Amit Chaudhuri began with a discussion of his literary inheritance - that combined Philip Larkin with Tagore. ----more----From there we headed towards Bengali culture and onwards to: * Ideas of 'ownership' of culture - Bengali and English * English conceptions of India and 'Asia' * class in India and England * finding your voice as a writer * discovering that your subject is 'the rhythms of the everyday' * 'What you see on the street, from a window, a balcony...Maybe even the toilet and the bath as private spaces where you achieve certain kind of movements...' * the influence of Ulysses - for and against * a Portrait of Chaudhuri of a Young (Tolstory and Joyce) Reader * 'I suddenly realised that Tolstoy's way was not going to be my way' * reading, writing and daydreaming * looking, place and translation - Dublin and Calcutta * falling love with DH Lawrence - 'the everyday was always being transformed' * the problems of plot * memoir v autobiographical fiction * 'I am not in any conventional way interested in autobiography' * stories and repetition * further thoughts on Joyce and the 'joy in the provisional' * writing as an act of memorialisation * 'For me, more alive means all the inconsequential, random things that make up our lives' * Homer - Odysseus meets his son * was writing Odysseus Abroad cathartic in any way * Chaudhuri as musician
And with that, pretty much, Chaudhuri's taxi arrived. For James Wood's review in The New Yorker, click here.
Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist, academic and musician whose books include A New World, The Immortals and most recently Odysseus Abroad. ----more----His talent for close observation of everyday details, events and characters have earned him comparison to Proust, though Chaudhuri tends to work on rather smaller canvasses. We met in an extremely noisy cafe in Oxford, and began by discussing Chaudhuri's own time as a postgraduate student in the city over two decades earlier. In the same way that this period inspired his second novel, Afternoon Raag, Chaudhuri's arrival in London and undergraduate degree in English at University College is the basis for Odysseus Abroad. As well as describing an early love of poetry, the novel traces through its allusive form a love of Homer and James Joyce. In the first part of our conversation, we also talked about: * his ambition to be a poet * his early career as a novelist and academic * why Oxford didn't inspire him as a writer * his memories of literary students and England's intellectual culture * Chadhuri's first visits to England in the 1970s * racism, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher * why Chaudhuri wrote about undergraduate days in London * how a memoir became a novel thanks to Homer's Odyssey * how Chaudhuri's Uncle Radesh the uncle in Odysseus Abroad * how a charcoal sketch, 'Ulysses', by the Indian painter FN Sousa shaped the character of Uncle Radesh * Uncle Radesh becomes Odysseus, Chaudhuri becomes Telemachus * ten years later, Chaudhui begins to write a memoir * how Stephen Daedelus turned the book into a novel about unhappiness and alienation in London * how an Indian literary student reads Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' * 'I learned about language through the weather. I also learned about my love of light and of life through London' * the importance of travel and living 'abroad' for Chaudhuri's writing * poetry as Chaudhuri's first love * 'I am far more excited by discovering the German poet Gunter Eich than anything on the Booker Prize shortlist, with very good reason' * time, slowness and Chaudhuri's prose * popular culture and why Chaudhuri loves The Simpsons.
Amit Chaudhuri's website can be found here.
In the final part of my epic conversation with the American soldier-poet Brian Turner, our attention turned to the question: does writing help confront trauma and the violence he has witnessed and indeed participated in. ----more----Other subjects include: * 'Sergeant Turner' vs Brian Turner: Poet * the part of Turner and his colleagues that died in Iraq * the rise of ISIS in Iraq * how do you live with the experiences he has had * how do I be happy * love and a reading about his wife from My Life as a Foreign Country * transitioning from war poet to poet * can you leave the war behind? * trying to understand the 'enemy' * the time Turner was almost killed * writing about torture and Turner's complicity with this * can poems change people's attitude to torture, Guantanamo etc * Iraq and the news cycle * art, empathy, sharing and understanding * 'The historians are wrong. We have decades ahead of us, just with Iraq' * why Sweden has taken more Iraqi refugees than US * is Turner a political writer? * 'There could be a lot more troubling of the water' * Turner on the future of Iraq * on returning to Baghdad in 2012
And then, finally, we headed to lunch.
In part three of my epic conversation with Brian Turner, we begin by discussing how the Soldier Poet bears witness, ----more----and how ideas of complicity distinguish this from other kinds of war writing. We then moved on to:* what inspired Turner to write about war * the stories being told by Iraqis about the war * the war as perceived by the Generals and soldiers on the ground * Mosul, the media and bearing witness * how the war will be assessed by historians * drones, video games and technology * war films and the reality of film * war, boredom and the intensity of the moment * how poetry investigates the moment * suicide and stress of war * what Turner can and can't talk about * 'the war has a tombstone over it' * why the Iraq war has not ended * Turner's own return home * did you suffer any post-traumatic stress * 'If you're going to send people off to war, they are going to come back with baggage' * Veterans in need of help * how we treat our veterans reflects the health of our nation
Brian Turner reads and discusses a passage from his memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country. Tim Adams' review in the Observer is: here. Brian Turner's website is: here.
In the second part of my lengthy conversation with the poet Brian Turner we begin by discussing language - in particular pejorative terms like 'Haji'. Turner moves from this, through coining 'otherise', to recall his own experiences in Iraq. ----more---- Our major themes include: * what it was like to follow the 'Invasion Troops' * the effect of Abu Ghraib on the Iraqi people * Turner's own relationship with the Iraqi people * life under the threat of roadside bombs * Donald Rumsfeld and the narrative of 'body counts' * raids and prisons * the guilt of putting innocent people in prison * hypermasculinity and writing about women * the military and Turner's family history * Turner's homemade war movies * the allure of warfare - adrenalin, meaning and moment * war, beauty and destruction in Mosul * death and the end of the world
Runtime: 24.39.
Brian Turner has become world famous for his war poetry, which was largely inspired by a year-long tour of Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. The ostensible reason for our meeting, however, was first sustained work of prose, a memoir entitled My Life as a Foreign Country, which ----more---- covered his early life, his family's long record of military service, his own tours of Iraq and his struggles to readjust to life back in America. This lyrical, unflinching book, which noticeably does away with page numbers, is his own Portrait of the Soldier-Poet as a Young Man. We met in Liverpool and talked in an office of the English Department, who were hosting a reading by Turner, Ilya Kaminsky and Carolyn Forché. In the first part of a lengthy conversation, we touched on office decor (Turner teaches creative writing at Sierra Nevada College), before pondering the vexed relationship between war and poetry. Turner recalled an early patrol outside Baghdad, where he had to decide whether to shoot a small band of men or not. He also pondered memory, violence and the language of war. His themes included: * war memoir as genre * sex, drugs, and boredom in the military * love and intimacy in war * camaraderie * beauty in war * the fear and excitement of being a soldier * the intensity of working in a war zone * how post traumatic stress wrecks relationships * violence * 'How many people did you kill, Sgt Turner?' * 'Did someone try to kill you, Sgt Turner?' * Turner as occupier * complicity and the War on Terror * memory and ghosts in * Turner recalls a patrol outside Baghdad. * how serving in Iraq changed his use of language as a poet * Turner reads and discusses Here, Bullet
Brian Turner's website is: http://www.brianturner.org/bio/
Brian Turner, the next guest on This Writing Life, reads the title poem from his first collection, Here Bullet. As a soldier in the US army, Turner served in Bosnia and Iraq, before turning to writing. He is the author of three books: in addition to Here, Bullet, he has published one other volume of verse, Phantom Noise, and the memoir My Life as a Foreign Country. Brian's website is: http://www.brianturner.org/poetry/
In part two of my conversation with Tomas Gonzalez in an echoey London hotel, we continued to discuss his dark, autobiographical debut novel In the Beginning was the Sea. ----more---- We began with the influence of Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marques, then moved onto: * the beauty and horror of nature * man's environmental transgressions * Gonzalez on how we are turning the planet into a garbage dump * the sea as a symbol in Colombia * humankind's hubris * the place of religion and mysticism in his work * his anger with his brother * how writing can help understand death and pain * the importance of the quiet life for Gonzalez * 'Human beings are too successful for their own good' * writing about Colombia from abroad * Gonzalez's pessimism for the future * Gonzalez on Marquez and magical realism in Colombian fiction * 'It's all so fucking difficult and so fucking beautiful' * horror and beauty in Gonzalez work * on J' wife Elena as character and reality * the future: past novels and future short stories
The Colombian novelist Tomas Gonzalez has been writing for three decades, but has only been read this year by an English-speaking audience after his debut, In the Beginning Was the Sea, was published by the wonderful Pushkin Press. ----more----Terse but lyrical, the novel was inspired by the murder of his brother Juan, who had swapped fast-living in Bogota for a dream of rural self-sufficiency on the Colombian coast. Juan, or J in the novel, was killed by a man he hired to manage the farm he shared with his girlfriend, Elena. The novel was Gonzalez's attempt to understand what happened and ponder its meaning against a larger universe at once beautiful, terrifying and indifferent to the human drama. We met in the slightly downbeat bar of Gonzalez's Kings Cross hotel. It was a peculiar venue to discuss matters at once melancholy and inspirational. We were interrupted, variously, by a loud fan, a woman filling a metal dog bowl full of food, the ensuing dog skittering on its claws towards its lunch, several workmen and a chatty receptionist. Enjoy the atmosphere. In part one we covered: * how to discuss debut novels that are 30 years old * the true story behind the novel * dreams of escape and escaping the rat race * the murder of Gonzalez's brother Juan * Gonzalez's encounter with his brother's murderer * revenge, violence and art * why he wrote the novel * the challenge of turning real-life tragedy into art * the lure of escape and escapism * ideas of success * how Gonzalez wrote the novel * Gonzalez the barman and making writing pay * drinking and literature * moving to Miami
My review of In the Beginning was the Sea in the Independent is: here.
In the second half of my conversation with Karen Joy Fowler, we shift seamlessly (sort of) from Star Wars to ponder:
----more----* self, other, difference and childhood,
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whether an interesting childhood a good thing,
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parentting as experiment,
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bad dads,
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responses to the novel, including a letter from a woman whose family participated in the actual experiments,
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communication in the animal world,
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vivisection,
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the Brown Dog Riots in Battersea,
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non-violence and American activism,
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Fowler's ideas about writing,
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inspiration and uncontrollable characters,
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reviews, bleakness and comedy,
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literature empathy and September 11th,
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risk, happiness, success and how to be a hit novelist (not),
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the challenge of following We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,
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and, how Obamacare can help American novelists.
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves was my novel of 2014, and was also nominated by Katy Guest, literary editor at the Sunday Independent.
Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is one of 2014's most memorable and lauded novels. Having received rave reviews across the world, it won the Pen/Faulkner in the United States and then became one of the first works by an American to be shortlisted for the Man Booker. ----more---- Our narrator is Rosemary Cooke, an introverted college student drifting through life. Slowly, she reveals that her isolation springs from her unconventional upbringing. Her father is an animal behaviourist, her mother is traumatised, her brother has gone Awol and her sister, Fern, has vanished entirely. The implication that Fern’s disappearance lies at the heart of her dysfunction is explained in a beautifully judged twist, not so much in the tail as the head.
I talked to Karen on the day We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves was published in the United Kingdom. She was in suitably celebratory mood, sipping prosecco as we discussed (in part one):
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the origins of the story,
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how her father and her daughter helped shape the novel,
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how formative experiences playing with rats in her father's lab informed the book,
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that title,
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the real scientific experiment that inspired the story,
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twists in the tale,
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how to structure a narrative,
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humour,
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Kafka, Robertson Davies and literary other allusions,
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Bob Dylan's lyrics,
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and how Chewbacca is discriminated against in Star Wars
There was also a false start and the distinct sound of bubbly being drunk. Part two to follow. Karen Joy Fowler's website is: here.