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Two Longlistings

It’s been a pretty lean year writing-wise. My decision to enter as many writing competitions as possible has backfired spectacularly, with a tsunami of failures that have penetrated even my rejection-thickened hide.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

But two small and very welcome glimmers have come in the form of longlistings in the Cambridge Short Story Prize and the HISSAC Short Story Prize – both for the same story, ‘Uffington’. It’s a story that has been through quite a drawn-out and painful genesis, so I’m delighted it’s received some recognition.

I didn’t progress any further in the first of these competitions, but the second is still in train, so fingers crossed.

Surfin’ USA

I’ve tried surfing a couple of times. In my 20s I did a course at Croyde surf school and won a ‘Wave of the Day’ medal for catching a wave all the way to the beach (still my greatest achievement). I thought I was pretty good at it, only to be disabused a couple of years ago in St Ives when I couldn’t even get up from horizontal.

Paul Theroux’s new novel, Under the Wave at Waimea, follows the (mis)fortunes of a much better surfer: Joe Sharkey, aka The Shark, as he struggles to come to terms with getting older and the fear that he may never surf again. It includes a guest appearance by the great gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. You can read my review in the Literary Review: https://literaryreview.co.uk/surfing-with-sharks

Books of the Year 2020

(Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash)

I love a gothic mystery, and The Quickening by Rhiannon Ward (Trapeze) had me gripped. Set in the 1920s, the narrator, a heavily pregnant photographer, is sent to a decaying old pile in Sussex to photograph the contents for auction. But the house was once the scene of a dramatic séance, which is about to be recreated.

My first job in publishing, way back in the mists of time, was on Macmillan’s thirty-volume Dictionary of Art, so I was naturally drawn to Eley Williams’ terrific debut novel The Liar’s Dictionary (Heinemann). It’s ostensibly about the search for fake entries (‘mountweazels’) in an unfinished encyclopedia, but is also a witty love story and a celebration of the power of language.

Caoilinn Hughes’ The Wild Laughter (Oneworld) is a tragi-comic story of two brothers trying to deal with their aged father’s dying wishes in post-boom Ireland, while Anna Vaught’s excellent debut novel, Saving Lucia (Bluemoose), tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the Hon Violet Gibson, who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1926, and Lucia Joyce, daughter of James, after they were both deemed mentally unstable and sent to the same institution. 

I had never read any of David Constantine’s work before, but his latest collection of short stories, The Dressing-Up Box (Comma Press) left me wondering what had taken me so long. Weird in a very good way, the opening story, in which a group of children barricade themselves in an abandoned house, has haunted me ever since I read it. Annabel Banks’ debut story collection, Exercises in Control (Influx) also stood out.

Despite barely having left the house since March, I was asked by the Sunday Times to do their round-up of the year’s best travel books. There were several gems, but two really stood out. The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts (Doubleday) is partly a treasure hunt – Roberts was asked by a Mongolian friend to find a piano for her in Siberia – but it’s also a tremendous account of that region’s history and culture, taking in Rasputin, the gulags and the last tsar, among many other wonderful things.

For several years Gareth Rees has run a website called Unofficial Britain (www.unofficialbritain.com), which collects strange stories about places that tend to get overlooked: car parks and flyovers, motorway service stations and tower blocks, industrial estates and power stations. His book, Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Unexpected Places (Elliot and Thompson), sees him travelling the country in search of more such tales, including the exploits of the Grimsby Ghostbusters, called to deal with a slew of supernatural happenings in the coastal town. These are examples of the new British folklore, he argues, every bit as valuable as the myths and mysteries that swirl around our older buildings and landscapes.

I read some great books this year that were actually published in 2019 and so should technically not appear here, but what the hell – blame it on the pandemic. The Complex by Michael Walters (Salt) is a superbly unsettling, dream-like novel about two families coming together and falling apart in an isolated house, while Ian MacPherson’s Sloot (Bluemoose) is a very funny Celtic screwball noir about a failed stand-up comedian who returns to Dublin for a funeral and gets caught up in a crime caper.

I’m a recent convert to flash fiction, both in my writing and reading, and two collections showcased some of the best examples of the genre: Some Days Are Better Than Ours by Barbara Byar (Reflex) and Ken Elkes’ All That Is Between Us (AdHoc). 

I loved Toby Litt’s Patience (Galley Beggar). Set in an orphanage, it’s narrated by wheelchair-bound Elliott as he observes the daily dramas of his fellow orphans and their carers. Elliott is one of the funniest and most engaging narrators I’ve come across in a long time, and if you want to discover the rules of a game called Sockball, this is the novel for you.

My overall book of the year is Susanna Clarke’s brilliant Piranesi. I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and my hopes for her new one were very high. I wasn’t disappointed. Piranesi lives in a house of seemingly endless rooms, filled with huge statues, and with a lower floor inundated by the sea. Every week he meets up with a man known only as the Other. Where is this place? Why are they there? Mysterious and fantastical, it’s a stunning novel. 

Reading ‘Stub’

Over on Twitter, the writing community has created a great new initiative to get writers reading out their work while we’re all stuck at home, under the hashtag #FlashFamily. This gave me the opportunity to read my story ‘Stub’, published earlier this year in Lucent Dreaming.  So if you’d like to see me trying really hard not to stumble over my words, here it is:

Reviews Round-Up

Early days, I know, but there’s already a serious contender for my non-fiction book of the year. Poet George Szirtes’ The Photographer at Sixteen is an exceptional memoir of his mother. Told backwards from the moment of her death, it takes in several of the twentieth century’s most traumatic events, including the 1956 uprising in Hungary and the Holocaust. You can read my Sunday Times review here.

Szirtes

When I first started reviewing for the Sunday Times I did loads of very short paperback reviews, sometimes as many as six per week. I’d finish one book and immediately pick up another, like a chain smoker lighting a new cigarette with the butt of the previous.

It’s been a while since I did a paperback review, but recently I was asked to do two of the Costa Award winners: The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es, which won the Biography/Memoir category, and the debut novel winner, Stuart Turton’s The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Both of these are remarkable, and I was glad I wasn’t the one who had to pick an overall winner from the five categories.* Reviews here.

* (Actually, scratch that – I would love to judge the Costa … Or the Booker … Or the Pulitzer. Do get in touch.)

Milkman Delivers!

Milkman

Delighted to hear last night that Anna Burns has won the 2018 Man Booker Prize with her novel Milkman. It seemed to come as a surprise to many, and there’s been a lot of talk about its complexities and lack of commercial appeal (see for example this article in the Guardian). Yes, it does have long paragraphs, and, yes, none of the characters are given names, but there’s one aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked: it’s one of the funniest novels I’ve read in years. In particular, there’s a subplot about a couple who abandon their family to become ballroom dancing champions that literally made me laugh out loud.

I have to declare an interest, of course – I was the book’s copy editor, so perhaps I am a little biased. And editing necessarily requires a very different reading experience to that of a general reader. But it’s very rare when in the depths of editing also to be genuinely entertained by a book.

A hugely well-deserved win for Anna.

Gym Bunnies

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Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

My play Gym Bunnies has been selected by the good people at The Script Readers for a workshop in March. This will be a whole morning session at a London theatre, including a reading and discussion with professional actors. I’m excited and daunted in equal measure.

Gym Bunnies follows the fortunes of gym manager Doug and his old acquaintance Les, the ‘king of the gym’. Over the course of a few days their relationship deteriorates until violence threatens to erupt. The play explores issues of body image (both for men and women), ego and machismo, as well male-female relations and the way the past impacts on the present.

I’ll report back after the event!