Occasional reminder that my book ‘Darker With the Lights On’ is available from @transitbooks.bsky.social. My stories have been praised by Helen Garner, Claire-Louise Bennett, Max Porter, Elizabeth McCracken, Kevin Barry, Wendy Erskine & Eimear McBride, among others. www.transitbooks.org/books/darker
She had reorganised the books by spine color. She was removed to the staff room and settled down with a box of donuts. I stood in the kids' department with the manager, admiring the pattern. ‘Wait up’, he said. He took my arm and made us step back. The wall looked back at us, a huge technicolor eye.
One Sunday in the summer of 1993, a colleague arrived at Chicago Waterstone’s direct from a warehouse party. She set to work tidying the twelve case children’s fiction section. Hours passed. Word went round.
The Sound of the Mountain, but it's hard to go wrong.
She had reorganised the books by spine color. She was removed to the staff room and settled down with a box of donuts. I stood in the kids' department with the manager, admiring the pattern. ‘Wait up’, he said. He took my arm and made us step back. The wall looked back at us, a huge technicolor eye.
One Sunday in the summer of 1993, a colleague arrived at Chicago Waterstone’s direct from a warehouse party. She set to work tidying the twelve case children’s fiction section. Hours passed. Word went round.
Girlfriends The soft-spoken friendship between women is made of wistful reminiscing, is made of crisp, yellow confessions traced absently in sunlit dust. It lives near children and must disguise its distinct nature and scent a little. Under the table and linen and teacups it hides a sweetness no one may see. Close to a kitchen, a striking clock, and close to the husband's taut net of veins, close to the husband himself, his heartbeat, his deep-rooted expectation day and night - this friendship, ardent and unspoken, can only vibrate like a poem carrying between its lines a want the poet has never called by name.
between its lines
Tove Ditlevsen, ‘Girlfriends’, tr Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
My tatty 1976 hardcover of Renata Adler’s Speedboat.
2026 paperback reissue of Adler’s Speedboat.
It’s 50 years since Renata Adler’s incomparable novel ‘Speedboat’ was published: illuminative and dangerous as a lightning strike, bitingly funny, caustically insightful and marvellously stylish. Pub in US @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social, just reissued @wnbooks.bsky.social with intro by Hilton Als.
What is that cross? said Camier. There they go again. Planted in the bog, not far from the road, but too far for the inscription to be visible, a plain cross stood. I once knew, said Mercier, but no longer. I too once knew, said Camier, I'm almost sure. But he was not quite sure. It was the grave of a nationalist, brought here in the night by the enemy and executed, or perhaps only the corpse brought here, to be dumped. He was buried long after, with a minimum of formality. His name was Masse, perhaps Massey. No great store was set by him now, in patriotic circles. It was true he had done little for the cause. But he still had this monument. All that, and no doubt much more, Mercier and perhaps Camier had once known, and all forgotten. How aggravating, said Camier. Would you like to go and look? said Mercier. And you? said Camier. As you please, said Mercier.
Memorial to Noel Lemass, with the original cross, near Glassamucky Mountain, Dublin/Wicklow border.
all forgotten
Samuel Beckett, from ‘Mercier and Camier’
That’s autofiction, surely.
the empty center
Harry Fainlight, ‘Street’
What is that cross? said Camier. There they go again. Planted in the bog, not far from the road, but too far for the inscription to be visible, a plain cross stood. I once knew, said Mercier, but no longer. I too once knew, said Camier, I'm almost sure. But he was not quite sure. It was the grave of a nationalist, brought here in the night by the enemy and executed, or perhaps only the corpse brought here, to be dumped. He was buried long after, with a minimum of formality. His name was Masse, perhaps Massey. No great store was set by him now, in patriotic circles. It was true he had done little for the cause. But he still had this monument. All that, and no doubt much more, Mercier and perhaps Camier had once known, and all forgotten. How aggravating, said Camier. Would you like to go and look? said Mercier. And you? said Camier. As you please, said Mercier.
Memorial to Noel Lemass, with the original cross, near Glassamucky Mountain, Dublin/Wicklow border.
all forgotten
Samuel Beckett, from ‘Mercier and Camier’
Currently reading: Four Night Seas, a marvellous collection of short stories by Niamh MacCabe @niamhmaccabe.bsky.social , published by @lilliputpress.bsky.social
#ShortStories
Oh, yes. The way it drives forward, perfectly, unnervingly poised, but never overworked or self-consciously stylised.
My tatty 1976 hardcover of Renata Adler’s Speedboat.
2026 paperback reissue of Adler’s Speedboat.
It’s 50 years since Renata Adler’s incomparable novel ‘Speedboat’ was published: illuminative and dangerous as a lightning strike, bitingly funny, caustically insightful and marvellously stylish. Pub in US @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social, just reissued @wnbooks.bsky.social with intro by Hilton Als.
Enrico Terrinoni’s Italian translation of Alasdair Gray’s great novel Lanark, published by Safarà Editore. On display at La Feltrinelli bookshop in Pisa.
So true. I suspect your anthology widened the aperture through which more of the light of creativity could pour.
The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers. The collection's title is borrowed from Maeve Brennan, whose story 'The Eldest Child' is included here. Elizabeth Bowen, Maeve Brennan, Niamh Boyce, Evelyn Conlon, Mary Costello, June Caldwell, Lucy Caldwell, Anne Devlin, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Maria Edgeworth, Anne Enright, Norah Hoult, Mary Lavin, Siobhán Mannion, Molly McCloskey, Eimear McBride, Bernie McGill, Lisa Mçlnerney, Belinda McKeon, Lia Mills, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Kate O'Brien, Roisín O'Donnell, E. M. Reapy, Charlotte Riddell, Eimear Ryan, Anakana Schofield, Somerville & Ross and Susan Stairs.
The Long Gaze Back from 2011, edited @sineadgleeson.bsky.social reshaped the Irish literary canon, asserting in their rightful place a great cohort of women writers. Recently reprinted @newislandbooks.bsky.social.
purely by chance
Adam Ehrlich Sachs, from ‘Unrest’
"skin and bone memories, rags of sense that now barely cover the self" #interactive
Good to read with Cronin’s Dead As Doornails.
Good Behaviour, Mollie Keane, Murphy, Beckett, Duffy Is Dead, JM O’Neill, Cadenza, Ralph Cusack, Crock of Gold, James Stephens, Flann O—everything. S stories: William Carleton, Somerville & Ross, Maeve Brennan, Frank O’Connor, Norah Hoult, Benedict Kiely, Kevin Barry, Bridget O’Connor, Wendy Erskine
A while back for the @stingingfly.bsky.social podcast, Sophie Mackintosh read my story 'Leckerdam of the Golden Hand' and talked about it with Nicole Flattery. stingingfly.org/podcast/soph...
