Patrick Ryan: Connecting lives
PATRICK RYAN’S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED short story collection The Dream Life of Astronauts (2017) marked him out as a writer to watch. His stories brim with rounded often-unforgettable characters living quietly, with yearning, humanity and acceptance. He is a master of dialogue, the unsentimental and the subtle. So when his debut novel Buckeye arrived, I approached...
Claire Fuller: The female gaze
Claire Fuller’s third novel Bitter Orange is a delicious read that lingers in the reader’s subconscious long after the final page is turned. It’s the summer of 1969 and Frances, Peter and Cara are camping out at Lyntons, a once-grand, neoclassical mansion that they’re surveying for its new American owner. Frances is a socially awkward...
Being both
I love learning and that’s why I write novels. I’m not talking about research. I’m talking about the process when I sit down to write and empty my mind of everything I’ve ever known in order to make space for stories to emerge from within me. That’s when the real learning happens. It’s at these...
Through a glass half full
Dear reader, I want to tell you about a new list we’re launching at John Murray, called JM Originals. I’ll be honest – I’ve found it quite hard to pin down exactly what the list is. The line we’ve been using, printed on the first page of each book, is that it’s “a home for fresh...
