‘The Same Country’ Makes Best 2023 Lists
I still remember the barista at the cafe Ffloc, near my writing studio in Cardiff, telling me this autumn that he’d just seen me described as a Welsh writer. “So,” Tyler said. “What do you think of that?!” Well, I was pretty happy with it already, and then this week, Wales Arts Review listed my novel The Same Country as one of the best fiction books of the year. “…a novel of violence, mystery, and romance…provoking much thought about the status of America today.” I think I’m liking this new-ish designation.
It was as much an honor when the American writer Kalisha Buckhanon put me on her list, too — and Sheperd.com asked writers to list only three favorite books from 2023. Coming from a fellow American whose own novels are powerful and incisive in their look at Black women’s lives, this felt especially meaningful. She wrote:
“The Same Country is a gripping story from beginning to end, through the eyes of so many vivid characters, at one of the most explosive times in America for race relations...I loved this novel.”
Signed copies are availale for purchase at UK bookstores where I did events, including Griffin Books in Penarth; Cover to Cover in Swansea; October Books in Southampton; P&G Wells in Winchester; and Waterstones Leadenhall in London (though call first to double-check). Waterstones stocks it at other locations, too.
The Same Country is also available at these bookstore Web sites
If you’ve read The Same Country by now, please write a review — on GoodReads, Amazon, or whatever is your favorite books or social media site.
My ten minutes of BBC fame - and Spring events
I’d escaped to Washington, DC to try to sneak in a little writing on the new novel, when I was interviewed by BBC Radio Solent's Lou Hannan for her Wednesday noontime books slot.
What a blast! Lou actually made live radio easy as she asked about anything from the inspirations for The Same Country, to my plans to see my father in Florida for Christmas. And I got to tell my favorite story about why I moved to Wales. You can listen to my interview at 2:14 on this clip.
I have at least two events scheduled for the Spring 2024: Writers in Conversation in Southampton at MAST Theatre on Monday 5 February; and in Cardiff at 5 pm on Monday 19 February, hosted by Cardiff University Creative Writing (info to come in the new year on these links).
Fancy an author dropping into your book club?
I’m talking to a number of book clubs this Spring, too, so get get in touch with me if you’re interested, and let friends and family know I’m willing to appear as an author, via Zoom or even in person, depending on the location. Always fun to talk to readers!
And 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.
Just Finished, and Currently Reading: Recommendations
Reading is writing for a writer, and so my self-made writing retreat in Washington, DC has allowed me to catch up on my To-Read list.
First, Virginia Woolf. I have spent half my time with Jacob’s Room not reading, but pausing — stilled by phrases that express intricate ideas with beauty and absolute clarity. I keep stopping to copy them down. Here’s just one:
“Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title.”
I found myself doing the same with Patrick McGuinness’s latest collection, Blood Feather — in part because he is hitting on some themes of my own still-nascent novel-in-progress, in part for the simplicity with which he, too, conjures up entire worlds.
The other night, I finished Jesmyn Ward’s latest novel, Let Us Descend. It is remarkable for its invention and for the deep emotion she evokes while tracing the life of a slave, Annis, who is separated from her mother then forced to march for months to New Orleans and a new, even worse, owner. It may be Ward’s darkest book yet — the title comes from Dante’s Inferno, which Annis overhears a teacher reading to her white half-sisters; setting Annis’s journey alongside Dante makes explicit what is implicit: a slave’s narrative as a descent into hell.
I’m part way through the other three books on my list: Julian Stannard’s Please Don’t Bomb the Ghost of My Brother may be his darkest book yet, too, although there is always a seriousness, even sadness, underneath his playful poems. Zadie Smith’s The Fraud is a delight, surprising me with its humorous digs at not just the writer it’s about, William Ainsworth, but maybe all writers? And I always treasure a new Alice McDermott book: and how pre-Zeitgeist she was in using a Barbie doll as a foil in Absolution. Yet how many years before the blockbuster-of-the-summer did McDermott write that scene? Oh, and it is a lot better than Barbie.
Thank you for a great few months!
Releasing The Same Country has been a whirlwind of a time: exciting, emotional, intellectually stimulating. Friends showed up for my launches in Cardiff and London from the United States. Former MA Creative Writing students appeared at my lauches (hello Lizzie and Oli, Michelle and Tim!) and one traveled all the way from Reading to Southampton (thank you, Matt!) Strangers came too, and purchased my book.
So I couldn’t resist putting a few more photos from this most delightful autumn - with gratitude to everyone who has been so supportive. Spring ahead? Well, maybe in a few weeks.