Blog Archives

Do you read for relaxation?

31/10/2016

Reading, in fact produces its own forms of anxiety. Worries and preoccupations suggested by some other person’s prose start flurrying into my brain, preventing me from sleeping through the night.

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Fictional Korea from Jung Yun and Krys Lee

28/10/2016

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I’ve been interested in fictional Korea since coming across Adam Johnson's chilling novel about the cruelly crazy North Korean regime, The Orphan Master's Son. Later, I learnt that all is not rosy in South Korea either via The Defections by Hannah Michell, and about the brutal response to a rebellion in that country through the translated novel, Human Acts by Han Kang. Courtesy of Picador and Faber and Faber, I’m pleased for the opportunity to read two more novels, both debuts, providing insights into Korean politics, people and culture. Shelter is about a family of Korean immigrants to North America. How I Became a North Korean tells of the fortunes and misfortunes of North Korean defectors crossing the border to China.

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Planning for pantsers?

25/10/2016

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Although, like many writers, I find autumn to be the best time to tackle major writing projects, I’ve never yet been tempted to register for National Novel Writing Month. For me, the pace is too fast and the outcome too limited, but there’s nothing to stop me joining in informally, which is what I decided to try two years ago. Starting with three character sketches and a rough idea of the main plot points, I averaged a thousand words a day from the beginning of November onwards and surprised myself with a rough first draft of just under 80,000 words by the middle of January.

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The Birdcage by Clive Aslet

22/10/2016

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Lieutenant Winnington-Smith is a promising artist and hopeless soldier who gets injured on his second day. Captain Southall is the commander of the Royal Flying Corps, Kite Balloon Section, who takes ‘Winner’ up in the sky to sketch the view. Elsie Fox is the fearless young working-class woman who drives an ambulance for the British Women’s Hospital and developed a soft spot for Winner on the boat out there. Isabel Hinchcliff is an upper-class nurse at the hospital, brought up with a heavily starched upper lip. Welcome to Salonika in the middle of the First World War, a multicultural playground and hotbed of spies in neutral Greece where those with the means can make believe carnage doesn’t lurk just over the horizon.

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Migrants and where they might come from: Born on a Tuesday & breach

18/10/2016

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Sometimes fiction furnishes a necessary escape from harsh reality. Sometimes it helps us interpret a confusing world. At other times it provides a safe space to explore disturbing issues we’d rather turn away from. These two books from small independent presses fall into the latter category: important stories, but I wouldn’t be supporting them if they weren’t also a good read. Personally, I’d rather dark truth than artificial light, but mostly, as these are, I want my stories well told.

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Hotels and expectations: Lover by Anna Raverat

16/10/2016

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Kate has a new job as an executive for a hotel chain and two young daughters when she discovers her husband is having an affair. As her marriage implodes, the pressure mounts in the workplace where Kate finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile the competing demands of caring for the guests and providing dividends to the shareholders.

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The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray

13/10/2016

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This morning, at 08:47 EST, I woke up to find myself excused from time.

I can picture you perfectly, reading this letter. You’ll be telling yourself I’ve gone stupid with grief, or that I’ve lost my mind—but my thinking has never been clearer. Believe me, Mrs Haven, when I tell you that this is no joke. Time moves freely about me, gurgling like a whirlpool, fluxing like a quantum field, spinning like a galaxy around its focal hub—at the hub, however, everything is quiet.

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Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain & Strange Bodies by Marcel Theroux

10/10/2016

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I was pleased to mark World Mental Health Day last year with a post on dignity in fictional representations of mental health. This year’s theme is dignity in mental health first aid. Now, although I perceive therapy as a longer term project rather than first aid, its foundation in active listening is fundamental to our initial response to others in distress. And, as no-one can engage in therapy unless they actively want to, it’s an approach that bestows dignity, so what better day to celebrate my series on fictional therapists by introducing you to a couple of new ones? As a finale, I’ve got a piece of flash fiction on combining short-term and long-term solutions to mental ill-health.

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Margaret and Jeanette do Shakespeare

5/10/2016

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After lapping up Anne Tyler’s updated Taming of the Shrew, I was keen to feast my eyes (and brain) on some of the other titles in the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Because the bones of the stories and characters are, to a greater or lesser extent, already familiar, the novels provide a unique insight into the workings on the authors’ imaginations. For the reader, the interpretations highlight the particular passions of our favourite authors. For the writer – especially one like me who continually asks herself How am I going to pull this one off? – they are a lesson in casting the spell that renders the most crazy plots convincing.

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Prickly characters

4/10/2016

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We all know a prickly character, someone around whom we need to tread carefully so as not to get stung. In our social lives, we might keep them at a distance but, in therapy, they’re often intriguing and we might relish the challenge of discovering what lies underneath that porcupine skin. In fiction, they can also be appealing but, like the shy character with whom there might be an element of overlap, they aren’t so straightforward to write.

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