‘The Same Country’ Makes Its Way Into the World
They say that art has to make its own way in the world once it’s finished — like children after they’ve grown up — so it’s been exciting to see my debut novel, The Same Country, released by Legend Press six weeks ago, meeting new people and possibly making a few friends. The novel has received good attention, with events in Wales and England, interviews in the Western Mail and Wales Arts Review, and reviews in Buzz Magazine and Nation.Cymru.
I was particularly gratified by the review in Nation.Cymru by the writer Niall Griffiths. The Web site had run an extract of The Same Country, and my essay “On Being a Writer in Wales,” so I knew a review was coming — but I didn’t know it would be by the two-time Wales Book of the Year Award winner Niall Griffiths. He’s a mighty force in Welsh publishing, and I suspect he doesn’t suffer fools lightly, so I began reading with some trepidation.
Griffith’s review is intelligent and wide-ranging, bringing in ideas about anything from American gun culture to The Wire to the American dream. It’s as much an essay on America as it is a review of The Same Country - and it ends like this: “It’s a slow and considered and cogitative story with a frenzied heartbreak at its core. Much like most newspaper front pages in 2023.” Could I ask for more?
The Same Country is available at these bookstores
If you’ve read The Same Country by now, please write your own review — on GoodReads, Amazon, or whatever is your favorite social media site or coffee shop. On Amazon, books with at least 50 reviews are then eligible for promotions and special offers. Even a few short words can help out a book tremendously. (And do this for other writers, too.)
Echoes of James Baldwin’s Another Country: My Essay on LitHub
I most certainly had the title of Baldwin’s amazing Another Country in mind when I came up with the title for The Same Country — as an echo of his, and also as a tribute — but I had saved reading his novel a second time until after I’d finished every last edit of my own book. When I began re-reading Another Country this Spring, I knew I’d want to write about Baldwin’s novel, too.
That impulse turned into this essay, published a few weeks ago on LitHub, a must-go-to site for anyone who loves reading and writing. Another Country is a joy to read, and I talk about the surprising creative decisions Baldwin makes in writing it. How much I’d like to adapt some of those ideas for my next novel, and see more contemporary writers try them, too — so I can read fiction that is a thick, colorful tapestry instead of an ironed shirt.
More Events This Month for The Same Country
I had a blast so far at my events, and so I’m looking forward to two more readings this autumn. The first, Voices on the Bridge, is this Thursday 19 October in Pontypridd. So waste no time heading to Ponty, where I’m reading with several other artists including the musician/writer Ben Wildsmith, poets Rachel Carney, Rob Cullen and Sion Tomos Owen, and spoken word artist/singer Pete Ak’ at Clwb Y Bont. If not in Wales, I’d love to see you in early November at Southampton’s beloved independent October Books on Thursday 2 November as I am interviewed by my wonderful colleague, the novelist Rebecca Smith.
I’ve had tremendous support from four bookstores that held launch events for the novel — starting with Griffin Books in Penarth. After seeing 100 people turn up on a steamy September evening at Penarth Pier Pavilion (see atmospheric video!) to hear about The Same Country, it’s no wonder Griffin was named the 2023 Independent Bookshop of the Year by the Bookseller. Events in Waterstones in Leadenhall in London, P&G Wells in Winchester, where fellow writer Judith Heneghan asked the questions, and Swansea’s Cover to Cover in Mumbles mean that signed copies of The Same Country are available at all these shops, so do support them if you can.
I’ll also be meeting with book groups in the Spring, and have a limited number of slots available, so email me at carole@caroleburns.com if you’d like to recommend The Same Country for your group, with possibly a visit (online or in person) with its author.
Just Read, Currently Reading and Want to Read
So many books to write about! But I’m again going to start with the book I’m reading right this moment: Jess Row’s incredible novel The New Earth. Row is the author of a book of essays, White Flights, which examined how white writers avoid writing about race and racism, so I was especially interested in his new novel. It’s ambitious, intelligent, character-rich, and full of ideas about racism, climate change, families and liberal (human?) self-regard. I wondered if 570 pages would be too much of a good thing? It won’t be.
Rosie at ShelfLife Books and Zines in Canton in Cardiff recommended The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone by Alex McCarthy, who grew up in Cardiff — a novel that creates its own unbroken beauty as it weaves through multiple points of views to tell its story about class, presumptions and abuse in a small Welsh valley town. Rosie’s recommendation was good timing for me, too, as I try to write my next novel - my novel-in-progress also has multiple viewpoints.
I’ve recently completed fellow Legend Press writer Fran Hill’s debut novel, Cuckoo in the Nest, about a bright teen-age girl who ends up in foster care after her mother dies and her father turns to alcoholism — only to find out she may be the only adult in this new family, too. I laughed out loud a few times, and I’d give Cuckoo in the Nest to any teen-ager I know.
I’ll soon be interviewing Donna Hemans about her latest novel, The House of Plain Truth, for another fab literary Web site, Electric Literature, so I’m looking forward to delving into that any day. Can’t wait that long? Watch me interview Donna online during lockdown about her previous novel, Tea by the Sea, for my reading series Writers in Conversation, where you can also find interviews with Helen Macdonald, Jennifer Egan, Tessa Hadley and the late Stephen Thompson.
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Loved your book. I'm not surprised it's going places!