Sunday Business Post review of Malarky & A Girl is a Half Formed Thing
What a thrill to see Malarky reviewed alongside Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing in the most recent Sunday Business Post newspaper. If you click the jpeg you should be able to eventually read the review once it enlarges) Our novels are certainly in conversation with each other and I look forward to digging in with Eimear’s.
I love that Joanne Hayden so intelligently discerned the overturning of stereotypes in Malarky and that she picked up on Bina in the book who I’m partial to. Thanks to Joanne for such an intelligent and considerate reckoning on both novels and her final note and nod to the Independent publishers who take risks on work like Eimear’s and mine and without whom we’d have both been scuppered.
Voltage of the language: On storm and Seamus
Late last evening we had the wildest series of thunder, lightning, wind and monsoon rain storm. I turned all the lights off and the apartment lit up intermittently like a muted Jean Michel Jarre concert where he was searching for the notes but the lights were doing their own thing.
At 5am I woke to the news that Seamus had died. Famous Seamus. May he rest in peace.
Saddened immensely though we all are, I am glad he made his exit with this particular weather event at his back. (Even if it were in another timezone). For a man who spent much of his formative years outdoors, based on his father being a cattle dealer and the reoccurrence of bog and turf and digging in his pomes — he might have appreciated a symphony of a weather moment and “the voltage of the language” that comes to the page and eyes from weather.
RTE are screening a documentary tonight on him at 2235 (Irish time). Tune in if you’re near a telly. Or pick up a book if you’re near your bookshelf.
I think of his family. He may have been a poet — the poet — to the world but for them he was a dad, brother, husband, a man who turned on the tap, boiled the potatoes or carrots dry and probably left a large quantity of newspapers or slender tomes in translation lying about the place that were trod upon by the dog or cat. How to find some privacy for the person when they’re a public figure? How to find the necessary quietness when the world mourns with you? It’s something of headache to navigate at a time of already overwhelming shock and deep sadness.
The hat landscape
Finally in this rapid slew of posts covering all manner of mutterings … I was rereading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie this week and in relation to my earlier post on landscape and the dispensing with it in the novel, I noticed that Muriel Spark introduces us to the landscape of the novel or that the landscape in the novel opens and declares itself in people’s hats. Each character is initially defined or described by the manner in which they wear or carry their hat.
It’s perfectly apt that she does not open the novel with descriptions of buildings or what have you, instead she situates us where we’ll explore from the head down. It was great to be reminded of how funny the novel is. I’m going to seek her very first novel The Comforters.
Our Woman gets fresh with Mr Penumbra
A reader sent me this happy snap of Our Woman canoodling or getting fresh beside Mr Penumbra there in the New Books section of Waterstones Bookshop in the UK. Have you spotted Our Woman snuggling up in any bookshops?
One Dimension
After a long absence from the cinema or at least that type of cinema (Hannah Arendt at a cinema that barely sells popcorn doesn’t quite count as DEAFENING-OMNIPLEX-VIEWING) I went to see the One Direction film earlier this week at a promo type event accompanying a friend.
I have some things to say about it, including a labour analysis and an invocation of Bronski Beat and Ken Loach.
I am waiting for a sensible publication to come forth and request I opine on the One Directionals for some shillings. Hello The New Statesman.
Roll up, roll up.
Please turn down those blessed adverts in the cinema — my ears are still ringing and it’s been 3 days since the 3D visual and auditory assault.
Drugs radio haze
Yesterday I drove to the US, when I sat into the car that morning the radio had an interview with a film maker who sounded like a politician (he kept repeating himself in stout declarations that did not go any place) but had made a film on Oxycontin addiction in a West Virginia town called Oceana. The film has the word Oceana in the title, perhaps it’s OxyOceana.
On the way back later that evening As it happens featured a Washington Post Journalist (or was it Wall Street Journal?) phoning in from Malaysia to talk about the epidemic of crystal meth in North Korea. That story was quite perplexing since as the interviewer pointed out North Korea is a country associated (or we associate) with deep poverty and famine. Crystal meth apparently suppresses appetite and he explained the North of North Korea has a bit of money because of the black market dealings.
In between the two stories on every single newscast was the story of Justin Trudeau taking a puff of a joint and Stephen Harper needing to take one and blaming his asthma for not being able to rather than his monumental uptight personality. Also, if he was really asthmatic he’d be doing a great deal more to curb pollution. It began to be quite ridiculous listening to this non-news-story on every hourly newscast with it bracketed by these much more compelling actual news stories. The thematic consistency began to feel slightly ridiculous. There was something Ned the Donkey about both Trudeau and Harper.
At one point just before the border I looked left and noticed a terrific haze on the mountains or whatever precisely was to the left since it was very hazy. In front of the haze were green houses and poly tunnels. A less than pleasant but necessary farming stink provided the aroma to accompany the haze. (forest fire? pollution? low cloud? I have no explanation for it).
RTE Arena radio interview
Here’s a link to the interview I did with RTE Radio One’s excellent art show Arena, if you scroll down you can find my bit. It was a live interview which is always anxiety inducing and exhilarating.
Thanks to Sean Rocks and the gang at Arena for having me on. I had a fun time indeed. Also there are some film reviews on that program if I remember correctly.
Flight read
I’ve been reading No Place To Call Home: Inside The Real Lives Of Gypsies and Travellers by Katharine Quarmby and today a documentary recording the eviction from Dale Farm crossed my Twitter timeline. I recommend a read and a watch. The documentary can be viewed here
Next up is NHS SOS: How the NHS was betrayed – and how we can save it which comes with a foreword by Ken Loach. I met a Polish taxi-driver working in London who told me his tale of having his life saved on the NHS. He collapsed, woke up in a hospital to learn he had a brain tumour. He expressed strong support for the NHS and appreciation for the treatment and care he received.
Metro-Herald Review
I was delighted to learn of this review (click multiple times on image & it will be readable) for Malarky from a bookseller at Hodges Figgis (sp?) book shop on Dame Street. The reviewer it turns out hails originally from Longford (and thus would be reliable on the turn of phrase and made no objection to the humour.). He interviewed me after the review and I appreciated his lively questions, exchange and insights on the book. It especially meant a great deal when he said of Himself in Malarky “I know that man”. Another reader who lives now in Vancouver but hails from rural Ireland, Co Cork I think it was said the same of Himself. This review was the loveliest surprise I can’t tell you. I particularly loved that it would be in the hands of people en route to work or going about their day. I have great faith in readers and the idea Our Woman might meet a few on the bus was uplifting. Thank you to the book seller who told me of this and to Daragh Reddin for his enthusiasm.
Debut-Litzer Fiction prize nomination for Malarky
I had a lovely surprise on landing at YVR to learn Malarky has been nominated for the Debut-Litzer Fiction Prize along with two very interesting sounding short story collections: Garbage Night at the Opera by Valerie Fioravanti and Favorite Monster
by Sharma Shields. A shortlist of three women writers. Yippee!
I am not entirely sure what the Debut-Litzer Prize is (a play on Pulitzer) but I am never fluent in book prizes. I am fluent in weather speculation and inadvertent ways to kill my dill plant.
I understand it’s given out by a wonderful sounding arts organization in Portland and Brooklyn called Late Night Library. We salute anything with the word library in the title and is awarded to “talented writers early in their careers”. Late Night Library also organize multi-genre events, reading series and most importantly have a national campaign to support independent bookstores and publishers. (sound the trumpets! + again!)
Thank you Late Night Library for this lovely surprise of a nomination and your splendid work to support bookstores and publishers and writers. Congratulations to all the writers nominated in the different categories.