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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Interiority: The Performance & Nervous System

17/4/2021

8 Comments

 
Let’s consider two novels published this month which direct the reader’s gaze towards the characters’ inner lives, mentally and physically. The first, set in Australia during the recent rampaging bushfires, focuses on the characters’ wandering minds as they watch a play. The second, set in the Americas, looks in on the body and outwards to the stars.

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The Performance by Claire Thomas

Even before lockdown closed the theatres, it had been a while since I watched a live performance. I must admit that, although I appreciate ‘culture’, my monkey mind would often focus more on the contents of my head than the story unfolding on the stage. So this novel made sense to me: three women processing their own disturbance while watching a disturbing play as, outside, the Australian bushfires rage.
 
Seventy-year-old literature professor, Margo, has come specifically to think. Her bruised arms display her husband’s recent acts of violence, while she is guilty of bruising remarks to her son and daughter-in-law. Also in the audience, forty-something Ivy contemplates the wonder of her toddler son and the challenge of distributing her surprise inheritance to worthy causes. Summer, a young theatre usher and aspiring actor, struggles to manage her anxiety about her girlfriend’s parents in the fire zone. That’s on top of her everyday anxieties, the roots of which might be in her mother’s silence about her heritage, and the indigenous father who is a complete unknown.
 
The Beckett play – the one with the woman buried up to her waist – promises symbolism that could keep book groups chatting for hours. The novel adds an additional layer with the climate crisis, with the women juggling ethical decisions in the icy chill of the theatre while temperatures soar outside. Although I worried slightly about connections I might be missing, the prose is so engaging and the characters so finally drawn, I was carried along by the flow of the story (and less distracted by my own thoughts than I would be at the theatre). Thanks to publishers Weidenfeld & Nicolson for my advance proof copy.
 
If you like three-handed novels, mine is coming soon:
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Nervous System by Lina Meruane
translated by Megan McDowell

The story of a family through their illnesses, medical investigations and surgeries from the point of view of the eldest daughter who is failing to complete a PhD in astrophysics in another country. The author provides few landmarks to aid the reader through her territory: places, people and ailments (apart from cancer) are undefined, and the names of the protagonist and her partner – Ella and El – are simply Spanish for She and He. I would’ve liked more about He and his forensic archaeology work in a dictatorship.
 
I have only myself to blame for two frustrating evenings as I hadn’t much enjoyed the author’s previous novel, Seeing Red which covers similar territory. Thanks to Atlantic Books for my proof copy.

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It’s said that we plant trees not for ourselves but for future generations. At this time of year, I’m grateful to whoever planted the glorious flowering cherry in my front garden. (It hasn’t yet reached the stage in the photo, but right now, as I work on this, the goldfinches are enjoying it.) Charli’s discussing gardens, plant-wise and metaphorical, with a flash fiction prompt on seeds of generosity. Inspired by The Performance, the prompt has led me to thoughts of literary legacy.
In the footsteps of Anonymous

Under the studio lights, the author doesn’t see the face behind the question, but the microphone amplifies his words. “Who are your literary influences?”
The author reels through her gratitude list. “But I’m most indebted to Anonymous.”
The interviewer laughs nervously. “People too humble to take the credit?”
“Didn’t get the chance,” says the author. “Anonymous published in obscurity. She was female, poor, black.”
From the corner of her eye, the author sees the producer slice a finger across his neck.
She hurries on: “Who would have thought an unnamed courtesan’s plague diary would spark a bestselling 21st-century novel?”
Latterly, I realise my flash is also inspired by a Zoom event I attended this week, hosted by Manchester Museum about cross-fertilisation of ideas through their liaison with a museum in Lahore. I rarely do anything cultural outside fiction and choral singing, and only went because my favourite artists, the Singh Twins (from whom I commissioned a painting of my garden including that flowering cherry) were speaking. I couldn’t summarise the discussion, but found it an extremely rewarding hour.
 
Finally – and fittingly, given that she is such a performer – Matty wishes to acknowledge the generosity of fellow Cumbrian, William Wordsworth, whose “Daffodils” planted the seeds of this parody poem, recently paraded at another part of the Ranch:


She wandered lonely in her head
Through deepest valleys, steepest hills,
Her face a mask, emotions dead,
So was it grief or those damn pills?
Asylum brought her to her knees,
God would not help her, will you please?


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Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Norah Colvin
18/4/2021 06:53:17 am

The Performance sounds quite interesting, Anne. I'm often distracted by my own thoughts. You weren't while reading the novel. I wonder if I would be.
Your flash is quite telling. I wonder how many of those Anonymous are only so by someone else's choosing.
I enjoyed your poetic parody too. Thanks for sharing it here. I haven't spotted it at the Ranch yet.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
18/4/2021 06:22:58 pm

Thanks, Norah. The Performance is definitely worth a listen. The poetry is some Mondays at the Ranch. You'd be good at it.

Reply
Norah Colvin
9/5/2021 11:59:04 am

Thanks, Anne. I'll keep The Performance in mind. I'm enjoying listening to Where the Crawdads Sing at the moment. I have seen the poetry challenge at the Ranch but not made the effort to join in yet.

Anne Goodwin
9/5/2021 03:30:03 pm

I haven't read the Crawdads, but I have it on order. You'll be ahead of me this time.

D. Avery link
19/4/2021 02:36:39 am

The poetry from Chel is every first Monday; Colleen every third Monday. with her Double Ennead challenge. Saying.

FYI, thinking of a garden tour through the saloon. Someday soon.

That first novel sounds good and an interesting approach; one to read with x-ray glasses of which our prompter once spoke.
Great flash; that was a generous author to remember and acknowledge the invisible and unaccounted.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
19/4/2021 06:57:06 am

Glad someone's keeping track! A garden tour would be great.

Reply
Charli Mills
20/4/2021 12:42:34 am

Anne, I wonder how many authors have followed in the steps of Anonymous? When I was studying medieval literature, much of the anonymous works were thought to be penned by women. I think any author from a marginalized group is likely to be erased from their own words. A thought-provoking flash.

Your cherry tree is gorgeous in full bloom! Hope the recent frosts won't diminish the buds.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
20/4/2021 04:05:24 pm

Thanks, Charli. A few shrubs have suffered from the frost but that tree is thriving. In a couple of days it'll match its photos and hopefully there won't be too much wind to blow the flowers away.

Reply



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