Words Unlimited

Book of The Month – May

The Empty Family, Colm Toibin’s  latest collection of short stories, is as satisfying, if not more so, than many a novel I’ve read recently.

The title story is an intense, lyrical, first-person account of a return to an isolated cottage on the coast of Co. Wexford, Ireland. The narrator meditates on the sea, exploring what it means to go home. What does family mean? It’s as much about acceptance as longing, squaring up to the limits of human existence.

‘One Minus One,’ has a similar lyric intensity – a story of loss, longing and the fear of intimacy. The ‘you,' to whom the story is addressed, we soon understand, is an ex-lover. The piece reads as if eavesdropping on a private conversation, creating  a compelling intimacy in a story that, paradoxically, explores the impossibility of getting close those who matter most.

Both of those stories have about them an authenticity, an unmistakable sense of emotional truth. They read as much like life writing, memoir, as fiction. In an interview, Toibin once said of writing fiction, “You need to dig deep in yourself and use private things … the mining of your own memory and privacy is supreme.” In these stories and others in the collection it feels as if Toibin is close to home, even if specific events and details are changed.

As if to admit this he offers the story, ‘Silence’ – an exploration on the need to keep secrets, but also to speak of them in some form. It’s a dramatisation of Lady Gregory’s recalling an encounter with the novelist Henry James. As well as an astute exploration of marriage v. passionate affair, it’s a master class in how secrets get turned into art, how and why fiction gets written.  This story alone is worth the price of the book.

Other stories such as ‘The Two Women,’ ‘The New Spain’ and ‘The Street,’ have a different voice and tone. Here, Toibin enters female lives or the lives of migrant workers. The narration is more journalistic – Toibin began his writing career as a newspaper man – the lens turned out onto the wider world.

If you aspire to write short fiction, this fine book is one to savour and to re-read.

Quote of The Week No 13

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."

Seneca

Ancient wisdom worth considering if you're suffering from writer's block.

Random Prompt No 2

Down in the cellar, she couldn't see it yet, but she could hear it. Unmistakeable. Tapping on the glass portholes. Rain. It had been so long ...

The Editor

Another great live webchat on Guardian Books online. Editor Francis Bickmore of Canongate. So now you have it, wonky plot can be fixed but forget it if you haven't got the voice, that particular presence-on-the-page.

I'm really looking for voice and personality. There needs to be a story of course, but if the voice doesn't sizzle it's not going to work for me. Certainly there will be books with a great voice that lack plot, and that can sometimes be remedied with a good edit. But you can't really edit in more charisma.

70 Poets Celebrate Dylan At 70

Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan, 70 today.

Who’d have thought it?

How did that suede-jacketed, smooth-skinned enigma walking down the snow-covered Greenwich Village street – West 4^th or Jones? –  on the cover of the Freewheelin’ album, Suze Rotolo hanging on his arm, get to reach 70?

Thinking about the album cover image and its affect on my teenage self led me to write my poem, 'Girl From The North.' And I’m excited to let you know that the poem appears in The Captain’s Tower, published today by Seren.

The Captain’s Tower is a birthday present to Dylan from the world of poetry. The book includes work by seventy poets who have met, seen or heard Dylan. The poems are about him, his work and how it has influenced their lives. There’s even a foreword by Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.

Contributors range across continents and ages, from contemporaries and friends of Dylan such as Allen Ginsberg, Laurence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure, to young writers such as Rachel Boast and Holly Hopkins. In between are familiar names from the poetry world – Paul Muldoon, Simon Armitage, Mark Ford, Jane Draycott, Linda France, Roger McGough, Glyn Maxwell, Robert Minhinnick, Matthew Sweeney, and many more including me!

I’ll be among the line-up of poets reading to launch the book at The Troubadour, London, on Monday 13 June, and at the Latitude Festival in July.

Hope to see some of you Dylan fans there!

You can buy the book, from Seren, or Inpress or from good, poetry-stocking bookshops.  

Quote of The Week No 12

"For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle"

This comes from an article by Mohsin Hamid on why it took him more years than he'd anticipated to solve the puzzle that was to become his bestselling novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Worth reading the whole piece, here.

The Agent

A great new series from Guardian Books online - five live webchats with book industry insiders.

The first happened last Friday as Karolina Sutton, an agent at Curtis Brown, braved the live session. Questions came from hopeful first-timers and from one literary star - tweny years ago much published and famous - who could no longer get the attention of the industry.  Plus all shades of writer in between.

It's worth trawling through the whole thread. Fascinating! Yes, we know this already but reading it confirms:

a. how very subjective it all is

b. there is a huge amount of luck involved

c. being able to write well is no guarantee of publication

As Karolina says, "Rejection is not a condemnation but an opinion ... I wouldn’t want to represent every book that has a potential to be published. A single agent can only take on a limited number of clients."

As long as it is such a lottery, isn't it worth buying a ticket?

Next in the series is Canongate Editor, Francis Bickmore.

 

Quote of The Week No 11

“The great underestimated source of knowledge for writers is school: Latin American history, vertebrate biology, that kind of thing.  In school I studied nearly everything except writing, with degrees in science … I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I’d written. I still do… I’m enough of a biologist to know that whatever comes in will, in some form, come back out.”

This comes from the excellent 'About Writing' section on, American novelist, Barbara Kingsolver's website.

It's worth looking at what else last year's Orange Prize winner has to say - wise words.

Yandle's 'Dogs' on YouTube

I'm not a doggy person and would generally avoid poems about dogs, but Paul Yandle's poem, 'Dogs,' is about more than the title lets on. It's a fine poem.

Plus, the kinetic typography he's used to make a video for YouTube seems a brilliant way for poets to put their work out there.

For those who love dogs and good poems, Yandle's work is shortly to be published in pamphlet, Ten Poems About Dogs, from Candlestick Press in July.

 

Quote of The Week No 10

"... Nobody becomes a writer because of his or her tremendous ease with social interactions and the spontaneity of the spoken word."

Elif Batuman, writing about her meeting with Jonathan Franzen. It comes from the recent article, 'Life After A Bestseller.' Worth a read. She manages to say so much about the writing life in a way that is funny but deeply serious at the same time. On the basis of this article I'm looking forward to reading her book: The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them.  I know, not the most alluring of titles but her writing has such energy, mixing high seriousness with a sense of humour. One to watch, I think.