Brief escape

So, I forgot to tell you - we went to Scotland. Glasgow, then Edinburgh, just at the end of the Festival. There were trains, plates of butterfish, mussels, opera singers, mimes, shops, friendly people, and one tiny, warm, blue hotel room. There was a very intriguing traditional pastry - a rhubarb pastry, to be exact - with plain, thin pastry, filled with stewed rhubarb.

There was also a concert- the Smashing Pumpkins, to be precise, and the Bearded One went to a higher place. Markets in the sunshine selling pretty dice, smelly soaps. Amnesty campaigners dozing in the breeze. Understandable, cause or no cause.
And vaguely amused old ladies watching a Canadian street performer exhaust himself for money.

Such an amazing wee hollyday.

And, I got to catch up with an old friend, an opera singer, as ever... and sometime pool shark, as ever.

Irish Publishers, learning to compete?

As part of an ongoing debate about Irish publishers' birthright to the Irish market, hackles were raised a while back by CLÉ president, Tony Farmar, with this article in the Irish Times. Should you not have a log-in for the IT, I'll quote the salient points in italics.

-The average European country publishes four times as many titles per head as we do. In terms of titles per million of population, Ireland is actually the weakest performer in the whole expanded EU.

- Unprotected either by language or distance from Britain, fewer than one in five literary and general books sold here are Irish-published. As far as books are concerned, Ireland is still part of the British Empire.

-There are four historical and structural reasons for this situation:
the powerful British publishing industry
Irish authors find British publishers difficult to resist
the radical shift of the terms of trade in favour of retailers
the Irish are reluctant book readers

Reading between the lines, from this I understand that Irish publishers don't know how to compete. Here, the President of CLÉ, compliments the Brits on their "honed marketing skills and deep pockets". Having seen a couple of truly unremarkable marketing and publicity campaigns by small Irish houses, and heard the moans of the smaller-circulation Irish press on their difficulties securing review copies, I wonder why CLÉ is not lambasting some of its own members for failing to make the most of what resources they have, or indeed, as an educating body, why they themselves don't endeavour to teach small presses how to hone their own marketing skills with an aim to, you know, making money, which they could then invest in future titles.

As for the Irish not buying books, 10% of books sold on the two islands are sold in the Republic of Ireland. Try that one on for size, population-wise. Ever see the clever Irish-themed tables at (UK) bookshop chains like Waterstone's and Hodgy Figg? UK booksellers, and increasingly Irish ones in city-centre Dublin like Eason's, Hughes & Hughes, Books Upstairs and the like, have come to realise that summer sales skyrocket thanks to... you guessed it, the Yanks buying books on holiday.

And every so often, we get a window into a displeasingly familiar way of thinking, with left-fielders like, "There is, of course, no knowing what unconscious Anglicisations are necessary to make Irish writings attractive to English tastes". Impossible to know where to begin with that one, so I'll leave it be.

In response to his own question, 'So what can be done?' Farmar comments,
The ideal structure of a viable publishing house is one that synergises the skills, interests and risks of different types of publishing. The hectic life of a Christmas best-seller sustains the long-term risk of "high art" literary publishing. Irish publishers are keen to develop more literary publishing, but this has to be done in the context of a healthily balanced set of activities.

Although the stories we tell ourselves in high literature are important, they are by no means the only way in which people's understandings and social capital are fostered. Not everyone has the mental stamina for John Banville or Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Less refined, more mediated books spread culture in its widest sense to a bigger audience. Books on such topics as local history, political issues such as "Boston versus Berlin", having a baby here, Celtic prayer, GAA, folk music, and our experience of cancer, are the "long thoughts" of a nation, for which locally published books are the uniquely appropriate medium.

Indeed. As someone who routinely scans Irish publishers' webpages for jobs, I can tell you that local history, health, the GAA and local and political histories are the mainstay of more than half of CLÉ's members, so that appears to be nothing more than back-patting - absurd, to my thinking, because this is Real World Business 101. I wish that I could comment on the sales of such titles, but I do know that they have absolutely no appeal for foreign rights sales. I would love to talk to someone in the know about rights sales in Ireland, as I know that they bring in a decent amount of income for publishers everywhere else in the world. I beleive that the expression is 'money for old rope', but maybe our situation is unique.

The promotion of a vigorous service by local publishers to local writers would seem to be an obvious responsibility of the Arts Council. However, the Arts Council's remit is to "literature", and it is unlikely that any possible widening of that term could include publications on looking after an elderly parent or proportional representation, however culturally useful they may be. We therefore need - as has been evolved in Canada, for instance - an approach to supporting publishing because of its wider contribution. Recently, Michael Ondaatje, the Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist and poet ... has acknowledged the "dedicated nurturing" that Canadian publishers, supported by their Book Publishing Industry Development Program against a similarly "over-mighty neighbour", were able to give him and authors such as Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, Carol Shields and Rohinton Mistry.

This is simply nonsensical. He says that he wants a widening of the terms of 'literature' as decreed by the Arts Council, and that we should look to the Canadians for an example. But what about that list does not say 'literature' to you? OK, Yann Martel is YA, but literary YA, and Carol Sheilds might be forced into 'women's fiction', but commercial they ain't. Literature IS art, that's why the Arts Council happily supports it. Commercial writing, as he outlines above, is the kind that makes publishing houses money and affords them the luxury of publishing literature. Looks like the Canadians have this one figured out just fine - why don't we?

He then goes on to compose a laundry-list of demands for the Arts Council, suggesting among other more sensible ideas,
privileging Irish-published books in public libraries and other institutions. The EU rightly sees books as the backbone of national cultural identity, and is prepared to allow otherwise iron rules, for instance in competition law, to be waived in their favour. In terms of literature, but particularly funding new literary talent and initiatives, I couldn't agree more, but folks, publishing is a BUSINESS. The people who run publishing houses must heed Farmar's advice and learn to balance what sells with what's art, and publish accordingly.


And as ever-on-the-ball Eoin Purcell points out, it's only going to get worse in terms of the British Invasion, but the subject was closed for the moment as far as the Irish Times were concerned - my letter to the editor, below, wasn't published.

"As a recent (and hopefully short-term) Irish expat working in the British publishing industry, I share Tony Farmar's frustration with the state of Irish publishing in his article of June 20, 'Is Irish publishing on the edge?'.

I would, however, like to point out the exodus of home-grown authors to Britain is not the only drain of Irish publishing talent. In addition to the 'obvious advantages to being published in England', it is short wonder that Irish authors are so sought after by well-established UK presses when the ranks of these same institutions are increasingly filled with young, talented Irish staff.

When in 2005, armed with an honours degree and considerable relevant experience, I found myself unable to find paid employment of any kind within Irish publishing, I relocated reluctantly to London for a graduate trainee scheme. There I joined the Society of Young Publishers, where I was surprised to be greeted by their large Irish membership as part of an ever-growing circle.

Apparently, I was not alone, and most had left when confronted by the financially strapped, closed world of Irish publishing.

I am proud and indeed relieved to have since secured a full-time editorial position in one of those prestigious publishing companies to which Mr. Farmar refers. I enjoy my work and benefit from working on a challenging and diverse fiction list in a highly respected publishing house, but I look forward tothe day when I can return to apply my skills to the works of Irish authors. I hope that publishing houses in Ireland heed Farmar's advice, but that they also attack the task of developing their lists to balance literature, commercial fiction and domestic non-fiction with titles of international interest, which might help to generate profit through improved sales of foreign rights. Furthermore, the industry must address its continuing failure to publicise, market and distribute their books effectively abroad.

Then, rather than bemoaning the success of their British counterparts, Irish publishing might welcome home experienced Irish staff and create suitable publishing houses for our great Irish literary talent."

Periodic Plump for Independent Everything

It's that time again, time to rant and rave about the neglected glories of small, independent presses. I am, of course, not alone in my ranting - when am I ever? tschaah, never - as witnessed by the fine folks at Branching Out, a resource for reader development. What peaked my interest is their Independent Press of the Month page, in which they present a well-informed page on whatever press has taken their fancy. This month, it's Peepal Press, which specialises in Caribbean and Black British writing.

Admirably, particularly because the independent presses needn't be integral to their programme, Branching Out also makes a point to highlight the functionality of the press' website, which is extremely important; the LEAST a small press can do is set up a decent, functional and hey, attractive website. It's a small investment, and one that small Irish publishers would do well to make. Some, like Maverick Press with their myspace page, have led the way, along with Liberties Press, but so many others have fourth-rate websites or none at all.

Likewise, while we're cleaning house on all findings indie, I've finally found an independent Irish bookseller online, which I intend to use for all gifts etc. going home. It's the web branch of Dame Street's Books Upstairs in Dublin.

With the sad closure of Greene's Bookshop's city centre shop in Dublin a while back (not dead and gone, though, they've moved to *gack* Sandyford, have a look at their websitehere), something should also be done for those who prefer to purchase in the flesh (paper?), there's this website listing of Irish independent bookshops Books Upstairs in Dublin.

Will keep up a list of interesting independent publishers and sellers in the lists to the right, starting with the amazing Snow Books/and their lovely staff blog. They're doing something very clever, bringing the bloggers directly to them rather than having to go out and find them. At any rate, hopefully I'll doing a better job on the indie list than I have of the short fiction posts, *blog guilt blog guilt*...

Fishies

Like most mere mortals with bad salaries and high rents, I live in Paperback Land. This means that I read all books (other than those I work on) a year after they come out, when they're cheaper, more colourful and more plentiful. If you have somehow, like myself until recently, managed to miss Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, you should know that it is indeed a book to be judged by its cover – and title. OK, so that's not the Yemen, but throw a girl a bone. Anyway, the book really does do what it says on the tin… of salmon. Schnar. A serious-minded fisheries scientist thinks that he might have to walk away from his career rather than get involved with a daft government-backed scheme to beat them all: taking Atlantic salmon to the wadis of the Yemen to please a rich Caledoniaphile (oh, yes) Sheik and provide a good photo-op in the Middle East for the PM. There’s a nice narrative sideline regards the bigger political machinations of the scheme involving a send-up of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell that’s more Yes, Minister than West Wing, though it does get a bit bogged-down halfway through. Eventually, the good scientist, trapped in a loveless marriage he never realised was miserable, finds that his life lacks meaning and adventure. Soon, he is flying around the world to learn about holding tanks, cooling systems and how to trick fish into adapting to desert life, while dodging his increasingly enraged wife, a sycophant spin-doctor and a backstabbing boss. It’s charming and funny and really just a straightforward middle-aged picaresque. Highly recommended for some fun, easy reading. And of course you already knew all that, but Hell, no one reads this anyway!

Finally, we found a new joint

Much though we love our tiny piece of Kentish Town, we are moving up the road to leafier pastures. In an unusual but hopefully fabulous arrangement, we'll be enjoying our own floor of a little Victorian house on a hill, complete with private garden. Living room and bedroom, each with big sash windows, big and bockety kichen/diner, tiny bathroom with bath, and best of all, bricked patio garden with raised beds which runs the length of kitchen and bath and around the bathroom with a little pergola. The landlady, one-time publishing grande dame and now involved in human rights (!) lives upstairs. She travels a lot, as do we, so there will be relatively few weekends in which we're all there together. The catch is that there's no division between our space and hers, other than the stairs, but it's all very private, really, and others before us have done it for years at a stretch so it can't be bad. Here, look what I drew! And the best part of all this? We're still on all the same bus routes, all but one overland, and we're still even on the Northern Line. Oh, yes. And, it's £200 per week including all bills except for phone.

Shortie of the Week

I've been on me hols, hence the radio silence and the lateness of this post! So really it's ok...

After an epic tour of the American South, beginning with an unplanned but lovely overnight in Virginia, Hilton Head, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia and finishing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, I'm back and exhausted.

In honour of the highlight of my trip, this week's short fiction is Savannah native Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' (1955).

Shortie of the Week

The inaugural Shortie is short fiction from the New Yorker earlier this month: 'One Minus One', by Colm Tóibín.

Read Short Fiction, Dammit

I work in a publishing house on the fiction list, so I know, live and breathe the truth that short stories don't sell. It is true. It is indisputable. And I'll tell you something else: it's absurd. I cannot understand why, in our saw-it-on-my-RSS-feed, soundbite-luvvin' world that people cannot and will not get their heads around the short story. It is the ultimate in potted brilliance. It is the thirty-minute lunchtime workout, the Coffee Break Spanish, the breakfast-in-a-shake of literature. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. A double espresso with no time to stir the sugar, down the hatch, crumple the paper cup and move on, gets your heart racing and out into the world. How can it NOT appeal to commuters, new mothers, travelling salesmen, teenagers and those who love to read but haven't the time? It never ceases to baffle me.

So, in the hope of inspiring a little appreciation for the gorgeous morsel, the tiny square of sticky baklava, the perfectly round pork-pie that is a fine piece of short fiction, I'm going to go out there and find one every week and post it, right here. And just to keep up the visuals, I'll include a parkbench original to complement the broader theme of the work.

Watch! Next post coming up... now!

Want some dorky, book-related fun?

We all do. So, I read about it somewhere or other, and had completely forgotten about it until I started thinking about the Clutter Monster living on the lower floor of zee tiny abode. At home, you know, in a country where people appreciate books, second-hand shops in big cities thrive, and are run by pleasant people. Here, however, my charming, once-read review copies get sneers from snotty booksellers near Leicester Square who flog Italian first editions of Godot and spell Beckett's name wrong on the shocking price tag. I saw it. So, in lieu of lugging them back to Dún Laoghaire as I often do in exchange for dinner-money (bag of books = €10-15), I thought I'd set them free.

Book Crossing is an extremely sweet and seemingly very popular idea. I'm linking to it along the right-hand side here forever more. Basically, you sign up (no big deal), register your books (add the ISBN and they do the rest), and then leave 'Release Notes' describing how you set your book free. You could leave it on a café table or throw it onto a passing barge.














All you have to do is tell eager bookcrossers where you put it. Did you leave it in a tree in Primrose Hill? On the 46A bus to UCD? Or did you pass it off to a friend? Dedicated souls are signed up to email alerts for areas they're likely to be near, so that they can even go hunting to see if they can beat random passersby to the book. Though you can pass off books to people you know, it is SO MUCH more fun to hide them in the wild! Ziploc bags are recommended, as are post-its on the cover declaring that 'This book is NOT lost! It's free! For you!' or some such enthuse... Then the curious passerby picks it up, and hopefully reads it, and logs back in to the website that bookcrossing.com has associated with that very book to say: 'Found your book! Love it / hate it / gave it to my sister / passed it on at the newstand of 4th and Delaware in Cheboygan, Michigan / on a vaporetto heading to St. Mark's in Venice'. So, ok, my books, though picked up, have not been reported back on, but I live in hope. And anyway, it's fun, and if you leave your books hidden in public, you feel like you're nine and on a treasure hunt, which is no bad thing.

Give your old books new life and send them on adventures. :)

Turkish Delights

A month on, much has happened. Job happiness has been further secured, I've turned twenty-six, made a small name for myself with a great London literary agent, and most importantly, been to a new city, a new country and a new continent.

Not sure what to start with, so I'll go with Istanbul and the, er, aforementioned Turkish delights. The Bearded One has nine months of Turkish under his belt, and neither of us had the least notion how popular this would make us. Everywhere we went, we met the sweetest, most enthusiastic people I have ever come across- certainly as a tourist. I was concerned about dressing modestly and the whole routine, and found that though I was wise to watch my Ps and Qs, we were welcome everywhere we wanted to go, and met and saw a whole swathe of Turkish society. The hotel, Hotel Turkuaz , was located in southern Sultanahmet, near Kumkapi and the Marmara coast in a neighbourhood that did not look like a likely tourist spot to say the least. Alive with the sounds (and smells) of stray cats like the rest of the city, and home to a politically but not religiously right-wing community, it was extremely poor, with most of the houses subsiding into the ground at distinctly non-right angles. It was a shame to see, because the hotel (which is indeed turquoise and not pink as it appears on the website- other photos are bang on) is a gorgeous example of Ottoman architecture, and there were a few others standing proud.It looks a little bit like Louisiana to me- tall and creaky, wooden, though tongue-and-groove, not clapboard, and full of curliques. It was run by the charming Maria, a cat- and turtle-loving Romanian. Nothing was too much trouble, though at times her advice regarding boring bits like ferry schedules warranted double-checking. The resident turtles, Fatima (pictured below) and Osman (camera-shy), oversaw epic and non-varying breakfsts in the chilly courtyard: eggs any way you like 'em, gorgeous, wet feta-like cheese, dried olives in oil, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, brioche, bread, butter, more cheese and jam. And as one astute elderly frenchwoman muttered on our last morning, 'Mais ecoute: il faut manger les crudités le matin, parce qu'on n'aura pas des autres durant la journée. Eh? EHH?' I got her, alright, with her little-old-lady subtlety. She was a legend: intrepid and nothing daunted, she was eating her crudités le matin AND learning Turkish at the age of seventy-five. But I digress: seeing the sights requires all the energy provided by our brekkies, so we took plenty of pit-stops along the way.
Beyoğlu is the place to be in the evenings, and check out the little boreens at the right-hand side at the base of İstiklal Caddesi, where the old tram terminates. We found a tiny, slightly dodgy-looking cafe, where the owner happily skipped up a death-defying ladder to settle us down in a tiny, cushion-filled erzatz loft for beers and 'cigar-shaped' cheese borek. No taps, no oven- just bottled Efes and gorgeous home-made food made, I suspect, that morning by the owner's mother and heated up when orders came in. Tasty, friendly and cheap. Live music started below, and a vacated table for two opened up, so were helped back down to reality to join the 12-strong crowd. Plates appeared out of the tiny kitchen, and that one amazing night happened, the one you always have in a holiday, the one that could never be reconstructed in the cafe that could never be found again. I'll leave the sights to speak for themselves, I guess, and recommend a great website on Turkey: pretty it ain't, but yer man's info is unparalleled for its accuracy and breadth, and we can thank the Turkey Travel Planner for a lot of our planning beforehand. We'll have to go back, as we could spend a whole 'nother week on boats seeing the islands.

New Irish books magazine!

Exciting news, exciting news- what looks like a legit, interesting online books quarterly. I do hope they keep up what they started, and who knows, I might do a little parkbenching in there, too. Wouldn't that be nice. They probably don't pay, but neither do some other very reliable books sites. Have a look at the sharp-looking Dublin Review of Books. Good work, folks. You have the Irish blogging community paying attention, anyway, which is certainly a great start. But where, I ask myself, is 36, College Green? Are these trinnerskids? And if not, how'd they get such a jammy office? Hmmm...


At any rate, serious-minded criticism in an accessible format, highly recommended by yours truly.

Obviously, another winner, for similar reasons and bearing a similar title, is the more tangible Dublin Review. A lot of care goes into it, and it shows- it's respected and enjoyed by people who know their stuff, but interests the youngins like myself. Going strong for some years now, it contains all sorts of literary gorgeousness, criticism, short fiction, long essays, autobiographical stories, dabblings of new travel writers and esteemed authors. Worth its weight in gold, and well produced. Simple words, with a *gasp* design concept? Well laid out, simple, consistently entertaining reading, and one of those things you're proud to say you read. Your challenge for the week? Use the words munken cream at the next possible opportunity.

Barack Hits Scotland

Big news: UK rights for the Barack Obama book were snapped up by the achingly savvy Canongate. Not their usual tack, but quite the coup nonetheless.

The Scotsman adores Jamie Byng and, well, understandably so. The man is practically single-handedly responsible for revitalising Scottish publishing. Check out their take on the new buy.

To give the appropriate disclaimer, I should probably admit here that was once paid a startling compliment by said publisher. What was even better was that the praise was passed through the newspaper editor who took a chance on giving me decent reviewing slots. One of them was Canongate's stunning jacketed paperback publication of the complex, dense and gorgeous My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdollah. So, I'm biased, but they really are a great house... Have a look, although their site needs a little formatting help.

I'm excited about Obama and everything, but really, folks, it's Clinton. More on that later.

P.S.- just saw that Eoin Purcell beat me to it :) Must get that handy dandy Bookseller bulletin set up.

A pleasant day in Camden

There's a first time for everything. Welcome to a pictoral record of my first truly lovely wander through Camden Town. Astonishingly, I was not pushed, offered hash, asked if I had some smack, or called a stupid whore by dodgy passers by. I'll let the pictures do the talking, and later, I'll chat about Shanghai Nights by Juan Marsé, recently published in paper by the ever-gorgeous Harvill Secker. Meanwhile... Go to see this astonishing coffee, um, roastery, where one quiet man of indeterminate origins roasts a short dozen different coffees in a sooty olfactory paradise.













And in keeping with this sensual overload, we have the audio...

and the gastronomical,
with some beautiful Moroccan stews in the nice bit of the Camden Lock Market.

Oh, dear. It's the fruit of my labours.

So you read. You read a lot. Forty, a hundred pages, three manuscripts per editor per week, two editors. You review, write reports, synopses, opinions, comparisons researched on the internet, in catalogues, the papers. You chat with colleagues, fight your corner, humour your editor, or not. You find foreign language readers, second readers, second opinions and insider insights. Africans, Irish, amateur botanists, historians, Middle East specialists, social workers. Whatever. The winners make it to the editorial meeting, where they might well still get shot down by dubious sales (UK or export), other editors, the MD...

For the rest, someone on the editorial side drafts the rejection letter, trying to be honest, constructive, fair, specific and yet vague enough to cover up the fact that most submissions aren't read past the first forty pages - if that. They try to maintain carefully-wrought relationships with agents, keeping them sweet but outlining an editor's likes, dislikes, likely buys and no-hope-in-Hell case scenarios yet still appearing to be open to the agents' every whim for fear they pass up the next Harry Potter or The Day of the Jackal. You tried, you all tried, and then? Then you see a website like this, and you hope that you or your office haven't been responsible for any of the worst rejection letters ever.

Now, whether Mr Hallamshire is a writer of note is of absolutely no import. I don't know of his work, nor, like the fine folks at A.P. Watt, is science fiction my thing, but I would never, ever write or be permitted to send anything so laid back, so dismissive, so... bad. What is disturbing here is the total lack of writing ability on the part of the editorial staff. Sure, time is a problem, as is the volume coming in from agents is astonishing, and on the agenting end, well, God only knows. If we get three or four fiction submissions per editor per day, I can but imagine what the agents get. But oi. If this is legit, try harder.

Close Quarters

So, one of the reasons that London smells, you will agree, is that quarters are close. Flats are small, offices cramped and tubes stuffed. It's not so much a problem as a fact of life, like living in one of those fold-down apartments in Tokyo.

Having decided against moving, myself and The Bearded One resolved to love our flat more, which is easy enough, considering that at £210 per week with no council tax to pay, it's a steal for a teeny one-bed on two floors with the aforementioned weenie patio in its fantabulous location convenient to work and friends. So, friends should come round more, and did last night, which was nice. Seems we could manage twice as many as we had in the end, so watch this space, party central.

Downside? At the moment, however, I'm huddled on the less pleasant of the two floors, because my Scary Neighbour is upstairs with The Bearded One. The Bearded One, like most boys, has a long fuse for people, unlike myself. Scary Neighbour is a large, strong, loud man in his thirties who, we can tell from being on the patio, likes to scream abuse at his wife. OK, so sometimes she screams back, but very rarely. Scary Neighbour, an equal oppurtunities screamer, also shouts filth when he's alone. He is, I believe, unaware that we know either of these facts. As sorry as I feel for the wife, what confirms his craziness in my mind is that he plays out entire fictional arguments at the top of his voice out the kitchen window while he does the dishes alone in his apartment.

I object to being forced to know these sorts of things about people.

Thought to beat for the coming week

Courtesy of George Simkin.

Editors 'R' Us... now with added cash!

So, the real belated news, told smugly while munching Portugal's greatest export of a sunny Sunday morning? The real news is a change of job and a complete and utter change of life for yours truly. Shortly before I travelled back to the US for Thanksgiving, I was given the heads up by the Editorial Assistant for Fiction that she was changing careers and going travelling in between the scenes, leaving her position gloriously vacant. Attempting a cross-departmental move in a fourteen-person company is something to be considered, as it does have the potential to backfire horribly, but not so here! And thank Christ for that, as I just don't think I could take it if this job went wrong. I've invested too much in being here to have to pack up now.

Organising the move was extremely stressful, most of it masterminded while sitting on the floor outside the VIP Lounge at Detroit Airport, stealing their Wi-Fi. (A lovely Japanese man and his wife invited me to come in just as I was finished, because they were allowed to have a guest, which was sweet.) But come January, I was back in the same lovely publishing house, full-time and fully engaged as Editorial Assistant for Fiction. Publicity, particularly part-time, is simply not me – not here, anyway. I have difficulty getting into the national press here, although it will come with time. More of a Guardian and books press girl, myself, but of course publicity requires so much more. The other thing about publicity at its lower levels is that it’s simply not brain work: strategy, planning, organisation, yes, but hard analysis, working with texts? Notsomuch.

So now, I actually read and write for most of the week- submissions, nothing finished. I now understand why editors have never read the backlist. Fantastic experience, and it really feels like a great match between academic thought and knowing the market. It’s extremely exciting. I just can’t believe that it took me a year and four months to get back to Plan A, and how long and awful that time was.

But now, now, my friends, I’m enjoying something of a revival. I’m back in the world, going to the theatre, concerts, (that's Willie Nelson, you heathen) buying nice food with the yummy mummies in Primrose Hill… smiling. Extraordinary stuff. Kind of like real life, but without the Irish people and the sea. Will keep me going in the meantime, anyway.

Will report, albeit somewhat cryptically, on what I’m reading as I go along. Meanwhile, enjoy the pics of my new, improved life and times in London. Congratulations in order to the team behind a well-thought out exhibition in a spooky locale, Art and Pigeon Pie.

See, I told you I was doing stuff.

Having no money doesn't make you less able to attend great free events, just less willing, so I really have no excuse for not having done more of this kind of thing before, except that I was using every spare minute to freelance myself into another £60 or looking for a new job. Before I had quality time with a laptop, and now... I have art and life and food. It's turning into a good year, I say in a small voice.

And so this is Christmas...

A quickie on the personal blog backlog before I cover the rest.

Christmas with The Bearded One took us to the South Bank for a frosty stomp, then an old-school sushi-chase and tickets to a truly kinked-up Cabaret. (Good work, Captain J.)

 

Christmas was spent quietly in Old Country, fresh air, sea, duck, wine.

Went to a litterati party, no less, up a boreen in Blackwater on Stephen's Day. Gorgeous and surreal. One prizewinner, one serious contender, a poetry editor, half a small, dysfunctional press' board, some artsy bigwigs and the prizewinner's family including a funny dentist who hated her job, and her brother, who fell three stories from a Barcelona balcony and was put back together with metal.

Then... New Year's with fabulous friends in Dublin. Amazingly, of the twenty people in the room, say, 17 of them Irish, all had been living in, were living in, or were moving to London.

Et me voila.

Back in business

So… here we are. February.

It’s been a busy few months, and I return with my tail between my legs. I think I’ll do a few separate entries, rather than one big behemoth job.

I last wrote in November, when I faced harsh truths about working part-time:
1. You can’t live on a part-time publishing salary in London, no matter how much freelance reviewing you manage to land.

2. If you do work part-time, and your company has use-it-or-lose-it holidays, you have plenty of time, no money, and holidays you must, well, use or lose.

3. Holiday days carry more weight when you’re part-time. If you work a three-day week, nine days of holiday means three weeks off.

I could have just handed them over to The Man, but I was having a lousy time and determined to sit around in my bathrobe and eat discount bonbons in Norf London if it came to it. A girl’s gotta do…

But that would have been grim- my own sugar-laden company can only amuse for so long. Instead, I spent a week toddling around London, seeing the sights, meeting the mates, reading through the stack.

Then, I thought about where else I could go. I had to have accommodation supplied, under the circumstances, so I considered the options, and found myself back in the town of my birth. Very odd to be back, and odder still as I it was the first Thanksgiving in eight years I had in the States.

My cut-price where’s-the-catch? trip took me from Gatwick to Detroit to National Airport. Not Reagan. National. Got it?

At any rate, I spent most of it inhaling a copy of I Served the King of England by Brohumil Hrabal (Vintage, 2005). A slim volume with a decadent, mouldy brown cover sporting a dusty 1920s scene in a plush hotel, waiters, flappers and wealthy gentleman sunk into velvet banquettes, hiding in snugs and dark wood panelling. Hrabal’s was not a name I knew, but Milan Kundera called him the greatest writer in their country. If it’s good enough for Kundera, it’s enough to knock the rest of us sideways. It is essentially a picaresque, but not of the sunny, blond-haired, rosy-cheeked, dirty fingernails variety. The book opens with a young, poor man helping his resourceful grandmother with her rather unusual work: she profits from the profits of others, as visiting salesmen up on their luck toss their old, worn shirts, socks and jocks out the window into a stream. There sit the young man and his grandmother, who wait, heron-like, ready to lift them out, wash, mend and resell them down the ladder of working men. Soon, the boy seeks to come up in the world, and gains employment as a waiter in one of Prague’s old hotels in a day when waitering was a career, and only the observant, the skilled and the discreet could get ahead.

From this unremarkable start opens the most charming, exquisitely-written tale I have read in years. Though it never leaves Prague and surrounds, the boy has an education beyond his wildest dreams, as lush, exotic and glittering as the most colourful travel lit. Hrabal writes sensually, not sexually, about the boy’s first encounters with the garish women who frequent the hotels, as he ‘covers their laps with flowers’. He captures awe surrounding the prime minister’s misleading dinner for three, as the staff twigging with varying speeds to the non-existence of third diner as man and mistress tumble, sweetly into a pergola in the gardens.

There is an air of magic to this book, and though I know that the term ‘magic realism’ can turn people clean off, there is nothing here as blatant as Garcìa Marquez or Angela Carter. It is as if the magic has just left the stage, leaving just a twinkle in its wake. Here, the King of Ethiopa arrives with his full entourage, and a banquet is created the likes of which Bohemia has never seen. The near-orgiastic scene that erupts as the camel stuffed with x, stuffed with y and flavoured with all the spices of the Orient is cut and consumed is loud, sparkling, funny and mesmerising. There are more such scenes, but I won’t spoil it for you. (If you’re interested, another blogger, waggish, has run through it comprehensively)
What’s more, I was so astonished by it, that I threw my copy across the living room in Washington at my father, and left it there, demanding that he read it. Oi, you people who don’t read modern and contemporary fiction – get to it.

As to my time in Washington, it was lovely, filling and all those good things. Met up with the Best Friend, and thinking of happy nights in Addis in King's Cross, introduced her to some first-rate Ethiopian in Addams Morgan, and sampled some fabulous but pricey mojitos. She is muchly missed, but there we are. Also, did some wandering in the Old Country of the outback of North West DC and relearned my driving skills all over again. Relaxing. Not London. Good.

Going the Wicklow Way

Having left at the crack of dawn (why am I always, always leaving at the crack of dawn despite my best efforts?!?!),

I'm back again after a gloriously lazy weekend in Wicklow with a houseful of friends, food, wine and sea views.

Fierce therapeutic, of course, and nice to make the place feel like home. Pleasing to be with other people who appreciate the small pleasures, and cracked up to see international types endearing themselves/bewildering locals to take pictures of gingerbread men and the like. Barely resisted the urge to avail of the five-finger discount in one of the town's amazing boutiques, well beyond my price range, of course. Lots of stomping, all the cobwebs blown out and returned clearheaded and sure as ever that London is not the place for me, but I think that's just going to be the way it is.

Did almost no reading while I was there, having just finished the fantastic The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa, a truly daft Dante-as-detective effort, and *gak* Mother Missing by Joyce Carol bloody Oates. Why I'm constantly subjected to Women's Writing (as opposed to writing by women) simply because I'm young and female is beyond me: as if you would feed a black freelancer almost exclusively Black Writing, mais bon. Silliness and entirely not my cup of tea, with women characters so objectionable, so catty, manipulative and stereotypically female that it was hard to drag myself past the opening scene. The Dante effort was fine but not worth discussing further, but the Agualusa! Fantastic. Absolutely gorgeous, gentle writing, unusual characters well developed, and several openly discussed and well-integrated themes. Based in Angola, it oozes light and heat, and has a lovely, rounded story about a 'seller of pasts' and how he falls in love. Absolutely superlative in its simplicity, and really rekindling an interest in contemporary African writing for me.

Now have a week off (use it or lose it holidays) and not enough to read! I might have to (gasp) read for pleasure! Shockin'.