My mother had a stroke. Luckily, it was quite minor. She was still able to read, though more slowly. There was a gap in her vision – an absence where sight simply didn’t take place. Because of this, she wasn’t able to drive. My mother’s stroke changed our family. None of her children had started […]
Receipt ‘Would you like the sea?’ I say yes, puzzled. Tamp, and another afternoon’s second coffee – she is Russian, or Ukrainian, and so I realise she said receipt. ‘I gave you a hard time earlier today,’ her Indian boss says, alongside the machine where she’s making my milk bluff. And she, ‘Not so much,’ […]
Today, Galley Beggar announced they will be publishing my novel Patience in August 2019. I feel differently about this book to others I’ve written. It seems, to me, the best thing I’ve done. Not just written, done. This is largely because I was visited by Elliott, a once-in-a-lifetime narrator who is nicer, wiser and generally […]
There were some things I didn’t expect to be able to find out, whilst researching Wrestliana. For example, in the ‘Preliminary Observations’ at the beginning of his novel Henry and Mary, William Litt says – I have observed real dates and facts, which prevented me from complying with the desire of several friends, who wished me to introduce […]
As some of you may have been directed here by the Galley Beggar newsletter, here’s some info about the forthcoming Wrestliana and wrestling-related events. I don’t usually post this kind of thing, but it would be great if you were able to come along and say hello: 7th June 2018, 7.30pm – Wrestliana launch at Cakes […]
Last year, I gave a lecture on ‘Success!!!’ and how to cope with it. I quoted Junot Díaz extensively, and approvingly. (I also used some words from him as the epigraph of my non-fiction book, Wrestliana: ‘You wrestle with your family your entire life.’) In the midst of the dismaying, appalling accusations against him, I […]
It’s Too Original Your novel is ahead of its time. This means that no-one is equipped to understand it, because in order to understand it’d they’d have to have read it, and no-one has yet read it because – when they try – they find they’re not equipped. A very vicious circle, this. However, your […]
WILLIAM’S LAKE WALK In 1824, William Litt wrote an account of his attendance at the Windermere Regatta. It was published in the local paper, the Cumberland Pacquet. I think it’s probably his best piece of writing, outside his book Wrestliana. Although I tried, I couldn’t find anywhere to include it – or even mention it […]
Because I always think the same thoughts whilst doing it. And I hate these thoughts, and want to get rid of them, so I’m trying to do that by writing them here. I think about – Alan Bennett’s London Review of Books article, ‘Memories of Lindsay Anderson’, in which he said – At the drabber […]
