Writing on with a joyful cackle
Perhaps Stephen King skimmed over the fine print when he signed his deal with the Devil to become one of the most successful authors of all time. Maybe the streetlights were too dim on that gloomy night at the crossroads, and he missed the clause that stated: “Henceforth, upon expiration of x months on worldwide...
A country escape
Christine Sneed’s latest novel Paris, He Said focuses on a woman in her early 30s who accepts the offer of an older man who invites her to live with him in the French capital and work as an artist. She writes from a luxurious and strings-free creative haven closer to home. October 2, 2015 Lake Forest, Illinois: I’m at Ragdale, an...
Vendela Vida: Other people
Vendela Vida’s latest novel The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty thrusts a nameless narrator into a maelstrom of mishaps in Morocco in which she loses her luggage, money and proof of identity and dives headlong into a random hiring as a cranky and needy Hollywood actress’s double. Her delirious dissembling is fuelled by a determined indifference...
Lost in story
Peter Swanson’s gripping new thriller The Kind Worth Killing, containing a satisfyingly twisted and murderous plot with nods to Patricia Highsmith, Agatha Christie and James M. Cain, has become an immediate bestseller and is shortlisted for the 2015 Ian Fleming Silver Dagger. He tells us about his influences and reading habits, and about delving into...
Writing about nothing
In a clip I never tire of watching, filmed on the Scandinavian leg of her 1976 tour, punk-rock legend Patti Smith takes perhaps the tamest song in the Velvet Underground’s repertoire and bawls it at us with a screech that is raw, ferocious, tortured. Her poet’s instincts turn Lou Reed’s bland line “lately you just...
Joy, not fear
Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, longlisted for the National Book Award, is a subtly subversive novel in two halves about impetuous college sweethearts who marry young and learn valuable lessons across three decades about love, art, creativity and power. She shares some hints about keeping the creative urge in check. 1. The blank page...
Hanya Yanagihara: Among friends
Only a day or two after I meet with Hanya Yanagihara to interview her about her Man Booker shortlisted novel A Little Life, the best new book I’ve read this year, I go to the cinema to see Crystal Moselle’s documentary The Wolfpack. The film tells the story of the six Angulo brothers who, despite...
David Gates: Mixed emotions
David Gates’ smart, scary and intoxicatingly funny novel Jernigan, about the destructive downward spiral of a restless, alcoholic recent widower, received ecstatic reviews when first published in 1991, but since fell on hard times in the UK. Serpent’s Tail has now reissued Jernigan alongside Gates’ first new book in sixteen years, the story collection A Hand Reached...
Jill Ciment: Not sentimental
Jill Ciment’s bittersweet comic novel Heroic Measures – just published for the first time in the UK – tells the story of an elderly Jewish couple in the midst of a bidding war over their prime Brooklyn apartment as their beloved dachshund lies sick in a hospital cage on the other side of town. The...
Housewarming
His grin shows off his molars, and he grips you with a handshake that could hold up a bridge. He announces his name like he’s its proud parent, and then holds your gaze in a vice so that when you mumble your own name back to him, it sounds like ‘Uncle’. When you turn a...
Friday in the park
On the third Friday in June, Stephen decided it would be as good as time as any to leave the house. See, Stephen had been inside for nearly a month. That’s what happens after guys like Stephen lose their jobs. Get fired. Go home. Stay there. Indefinitely. Stephen had gained, I don’t know, maybe twenty...
Tania James: ‘Lion and Panther in London’
Some short stories exist as fragments of time, giving you the middle of a moment, letting you figure out what brought people to that moment and what will become of them long after that fragment. Some short stories are static, in a head, in a simple interaction. If written badly, uncontrolled or imprecisely, these short...
