A Literary Life

The second of my reviews of the Man Booker Prize nominees continues with:   Deborah Levy, whose appearance of the Man Booker Prize long-list, appears as something of a surprise.   Her novel, Swimming Home, appears on the new label And Other Stories, and this is only their third novel.   It is rare for such small presses to gain such national recognition.   I said it appears as something of a surprise – but when you read Levy’s novel, the surprise dissipates.   You realise how quickly how strong a novel this is.   Also, it shouldn’t be a surprise, as Levy has previously published a few novels that gained major literary respect in the 1990s for her novels and for her theatre work.   Nevertheless, it has been a fifteen year gap between her last novel and this. Swimming Home, like The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (another novel on the Man Booker long-list), is deceptively simple.   It takes two clichés – the British family on a ...

In the first of my reviews of books nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2012, here is: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a simple story.   One morning, Harold Fry receives a letter.   It is from a woman he has not seen for twenty years, who is dying of cancer.   He writes a response, and walking to the post box to deliver his few lines of sympathy, keeps on walking.   He will keep on walking until he has walked the 627 miles to Queenie Hennessy’s bed.   The novel is what transpires during those 627 miles – the emotional truths Harold realises about himself, his marriage and the life of his son.   But it is also about the lives of those he encounters on his way – an immigrant nurse, a man with a shoe fetish, the hangers-on, the troubled men, and a stray dog.   The Unlikely Pilgrimage becomes a travelling show.   While, all the way back at his starting point, his wife is realising how much she misses her husband when he is gone...

I started a novel in December 2010.   I talked about its genesis in an earlier blog post (“ Origins of a Novel ”).   Now the screenplays I’ve written are out in the world, trying to find buyers, I’ve returned to the novel.   Here’s the thing: the few months away from it have allowed me to see it in new light.   It’s funnier than I remember.   A few pages I thought worked really well are actually quite clumsy (and unnecessary) and have been done away with.   For the majority of its 300 pages, though, ‘Adam Strauss and the Three Sisters’ works a treat.   Yeah, it needs tidying up.   A few scrappy lines here.   A missing scene of explanation there.   But the base, it’s solid.  Its walls are strong.  The whole thing works.   The titular characters work, their interaction is strong, and there is a real sense of romance, loss and tension between them.    I want to talk about the three sisters of the title: I...