Summertime, and the reading is...
I couldn’t resist starting this newsletter with my first advert in Welsh promoting an event for The Same Country. “Gorff,” we can learn from this flyer, means “July” - so join me Wednesday 10 July at 6:30 pm, when I’m interviewed by Cardiff poet, fiction writer and journalist Mark Blayney in Canton library in Cardiff. Sign up for the free tickets and/or forward to friends.
I’m thrilled, too, that the lovely Rosie from Canton’s independent bookshop, ShelfLife, will be there to sell tickets. You can buy books in advance from ShelfLife, or from Ffloc, where co-owner Lowri has also been amazingly supportive of my novel - both shops are on Cowbridge Road East.
Or hey - use the library. Some of you may have spotted me in that very library years ago, scribbling away in a notebook: I was working on The Same Country.
First Newsletter Author Interview: Judith Heneghan
Because I’ve always loved talking to other writers, I’ve decided to launch a new author interview series in my newsletter, On and Off the Page.
I’ve already written about Judith Heneghan’s new novel, Birdeye, and so I was thrilled that she agreed to talk to me about her book, which tells the story of Liv, 67, a mother and cancer survivor who is struggling to keep her life’s work - a commune in the Catskills - alive.
The book is richly reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout, full of spiky individualistic types whose flawed, stubborn fealty in their beliefs take the story in surprising, and moving, directions.
The full interview will be published in first half of July, but I’ll give you a sneak preview by providing this intriguing snippet from our talk. Judith said: “Novel-writing seems to be a curious mix of looking for shapes and patterns, but also accepting chaos, disruption and ‘acting out of character’. When the latter occurs, I’ll be forensic in searching for motivation. We need to believe the surprise, don’t we – whether writer or reader?”
Going ‘Clubbing’ with The Same Country Inspires New Feature: Interviews With Readers
I’ve been to several book clubs now, and I have to admit they’re becoming some of my favorite events. First, we can talk the entire book - yes, the ending, too! No spoilers, because what’s also wonderful is: there are six or ten or, in the last book club, more than fifteen people, who have all read my novel.
So in the autumn, I’m going to start a newsletter feature of author interviews with Miranda Dettwyler, a fellow dual UK/US citizen who not only had her own book club discuss The Same Country at Chapter Arts Centre in May, but her friends’ book club, too. A quick preview of Miranda: Before moving to Cardiff, she was an astrophysicist who studied black holes for NASA, then became an architect who now works in Penarth. She’s a mother, likes kayaking, baking, drawing, painting - oh, and reading.
You can see why I want to start talking to readers.
In the meantime, if you’re in a book club, or you know someone who is, and you’re interested in reading The Same Country — you know where to find me.
As well as ShelfLife (also has zines) and Ffloc (also has Welsh language books), my novel should still available for purchase (or certainly can be ordered) at UK bookstores where I did events, including the amazing Griffin Books in Penarth; Cover to Cover in Swansea; October Books in Southampton; and many Waterstones in London (though call first to double-check).
The Same Country is also available at these bookstore Web sites.
Reading, Recently Read or Ready to Read: Recommendations
Rebecca Smith’s latest novel Conversations With An Octopus is the perfect summer novel - entertaining and intelligent, with a love story, at least one murder and a huggable octopus. And, it takes place near the water. What could possibly be missing? Biting irony? It has that, too.
In her five novels until now, Rebecca has plumbed the interior lives of quirky English characters with a precision and wry observation that reminds me of Anne Tyler. Her latest and sixth novel, Conversations With an Octopus, about the suspiciously convenient deaths of a handful of overbearing husbands, brings her more into Fay Weldon territory - wickedly subversive, sneakily funny, and then it brings a tear to the eye.
It’s out 16 July, but until then, you can watch my Writers in Conversation interview with Rebecca, a colleague at the University of Southampton, about her previous book, The Ash Museum.)
My only complaint about the complicated, boundary-pushing writer Percival Everett’s latest novel (and 30th-something book), James - from the point of view of Jim, the runaway slave in Huckleberry Finn - is that I want to re-read Huckleberry Finn first. Let me clarify. It’ll be fascinating to read Huckleberry Finn again - it just means I’m waiting longer before getting to Everett’s book. (Everett is the author of the novel, Erasure, that the film American Fiction is based on, for those who might not have clocked that.)
I have been slowly reading the next two books on my list, Tremor by Teju Cole, and Greek Lessons by Han Kang - I’m not sure I want to let them go. Both are intricately written; take on intellectual topics - Ancient Greek, for example, in Kang; the tricky, racial history of many art objects, in Cole, and those are just two examples - and explore difficult personal subjects as well. Kang, a Man Booker International Prize winner, is one of my favorite writers, and so searing that sometimes, it’s hard to recommend her. But still, I do.
I don’t often recomment non-fiction, but the last book - The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet - is a series of essays about the fringes, or not-so fringes, of American life. Subtitled Scenes From a Slow Civil War, the book seemed necessary reading, both for my new novel (still very much in progress); for the upcoming American presidential election; and for living in our too-divided world.
Whatever book you’ve read recently (including The Same Country!) it would be so helpful to authors if you wrote a review — on GoodReads, Amazon, or whatever is your favorite books or social media site — or just shared a few words on social media.
Within ten days, my interview with Judith Heneghan will land in your inbox. So please recommend my email newsletter to anyone you might think would be interested — in the world of books, as well as my own bits of writing and news.