The Best and Worst of 2019

Well, it's that time of the year when everyone is doing their 'best and worst of' lists, so here is mine. I'm going to list the books and movies and records I read/watched/listened to in 2019 and then pick my favourites. This isn't restricted to what was new in 2019, but what I actually watched and read and heard - some of these items might be very old indeed.

Books:

I read the following in 2019:

Jeff Vandermeer – Borne
John Grant – Tell No Lies
Paul Finch – Dean Man Walking
Douglas Thompson – Sylvow
The Residents – Bad Day On The Midway
Tanya Tadaq – Split Tooth
Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest
China Mieville – The City & The City
Chris Beckett – Mother of Eden
Doug Jones – Posts 3
Joel Lane – Scar City
Ian Fleming – The Man With The Golden Gun
K J Bishop – That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote
Walker Percy – The Moviegoer
Ian McEwan – Atonement
Lucie McKnight Hardy – Jutland
Alison Moore – Broad Moor
Charles G Finney – The Circus of Dr Lao
Mark West - Drive
John Grant – The Lonely Hunter
Ray Cluley – 6/6
Clarice Lispector – Hour of the Star
Vladimir Nabokov – Transparent Things
Laura Mauro – Sing Your Sadness Deep
Viv Albertine – Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys
Christopher Priest – Fugue For A Darkening Island
Rosanne Rabinowitz – Helen’s Story
Neil Williamson – Secret Language
Michel Houllebeq – Platform
Nicholas Royle – First Novel
DH Lawrence – Selected Short Stories
Paul Meloy – Dogs With Their Eyes Shut
Nina Allen – The Harlequin
Rosanne Rabinowitz – All That Is Solid
Gary McMahon – At Home In The Shadows
Terry Grimwood – There Is A Way To Live Forever
Raymond Radiguet – Count D’Orgel’s Ball
Simon Bestwick – And Cannot Come Again
Stephen Volk – Leytonstone
Edited by Trevor Denyer – Night Light
Juan Rulfo – Pedro Paramos

That's worked out at 41 books this year, down from last years 43 so not too bad, although my target is probably 50 (which would take me 7 years to get through my backlog without buying any more books).

There were a couple of books this year that I struggled through and which I should probably have given up on, which included Walter Percy's "The Moviegoer" (apparently a 'dazzling classic' but for me navel-gazing and utterly pointless). "The Hour of the Star" by Clarice Lispector (like wading through a sea of treacle, soporific, a battle against ennui) and "Platform" by Michel Houellebecq (mundane and unexciting). There were also a handful of novels I thought were ok but perhaps not as good as they wanted them to be, which included "Borne" by Jeff Vandermeer (which I enjoyed for it's outré-ness but found a little unengaging) and "Atonement" by Ian McEwan (well-told but over-told).

I made an effort this year to read more books by authors that I know personally and out of the 41 books this included 22 from such folk (including a few books read for review). Overall, I enjoyed more books than I disliked this year, and the following deserve a special mention: Douglas Thompson's "Sylvow" (a multi-faceted and complex concoction), Tanya Tagaq's "Split Tooth" (brittle and harsh, as unforgiving as an Inuit landscape), Chris Beckett's "Mother of Eden" (a worthy successor to "Dark Eden"), the late Joel Lane's "Scar City" (quality urban dysfunctions), the novella, "Drive", by Mark West (an unabashed page-turner), John Grant's novella "The Lonely Hunter" (well-paced, intriguing, thoughtful), the music biography "Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys" (by The Slits' Viv Albertine), Neil Williamson's excellent collection of SF/Weird short stories, "Secret Language", Nicholas Royle's brilliant novel "First Novel" which very nearly gained a top three spot this year, and Nina Allen's "The Harlequin" which I also loved and was top three material.

However, as usual, I'm going to base my top three from my Goodreads reviews. Four books received my 5/5 rating, and so I'm edging out a collection by K.J.Bishop, "That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote", a book I described as 'surrealist baroque' and which I expanded in my review to state 'these are elegiac and mystical stories, borrowing but never cloning occasional genre standards, quirky and often humorous, but leaving the reader with a dislocation of possible other worlds which run parallel to ours but are just out of sight'. On another day, this might have made the top spot, but it probably didn't benefit from being read earlier in the year and sliding from my memory. However, without further ado, here are my favourite reads of 2019:


In reverse order:

"Helen's Story" by Rosanne Rabinowitz

I read this whilst on holiday in Cornwall and the wooded surroundings perfectly complemented this story. Confession: I haven't read Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan" from which the title character in this novella makes a singular appearance, however I found the narrative compelling, urgent and intriguing. Despite the 'fantastical elements' the story read very realistically, nothing seemed out of place. Helen is an appealing character, someone who I found readily identifiable, someone I was interested in. To take a fictional character and make them your own is brave and a challenge. Rabinowitz achieved this with an expert hand.

"Leytonstone" by Stephen Volk

Interestingly, another novella. "Leytonstone" is Volk's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, taking an oft-told anecdote from his youth and extrapolating an entire origin story from it which informs on - and bleeds into - the Master's movies. Volk doesn't put a foot wrong in tone, characterisation or prose. This is an engaging, compelling work which illuminates Hitchcock in the same way that Joyce Carol Oates' "Blonde" illuminates Monroe or John Connolly's "He" does the same for Stan Laurel. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

And the winner is:

"The City and The City" by China Miéville

This is a book, like Lavie Tidhar's "Osama" which was a favourite some years back, which I really should have written myself. I knew I would engage with this due to the neo-noir nod and the intrigue of the title. I won't go into the plot, suffice to say that the conceit of two cities existing simultaneously and the unseeing construct by which the citizens of each actively do not perceive the other is ruthlessly maintained by Miéville. In lesser hands, the novel would begin to fall apart as the logistics of the endeavour become unwieldy, but Miéville is married to the cause, the backdrop is the foreground, the tone is level throughout. It's a methodical book, but never labours. The investigation of the murder at the heart of the novel is legitimately stymied by bureaucracy and feels authentically Kafkaesque in principle whilst maintaining it's own identity. It concludes with aplomb. I thoroughly enjoyed it (although I can't say the same about anything else I've tried to read by Miéville, as I've never previously managed to finish one of his books)


Movies:

I watched the following in 2019:


Walkabout
The Image Book
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour
Doctor Chance
Roma
Psychokinesis
Pity
Steamboat Bill, Jr
A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop
The Family
Looper
Funny Ha Ha
T2: Trainspotting
Shadows
The Endless
Phase IV
Ghost Stories
Get Out
Await Further Instructions
Life
The Ritual
They Live
Detour
Phantom Lady
Hereditary
The Silence
Mysterious Skin
The Killers
Free Solo
The Game
Le Bonheur
Dark Horse
Black Dynamite
Suspiria
Fugue
Machorka-Muff
Not Reconciled, Or Only Violence Helps Where Violence Rules
Of Horses And Men
The Double Life Of Veronique
Cold In July
Funeral Parade of Roses
The Stranger
The Front Page
The Beguiled
Jurassic Park
Damage
The House That Jack Built
Berberian Sound Studio
The Duke of Burgundy
Les Amant du Pont-Neuf
Attenberg
I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Ok
The Thing
Wildlife
Code Unknown
Psycho
Café Society
Midnight Cowboy
An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn
mother!
Stan & Ollie
Spoor
The Seventh Continent
Wounds
Benny’s Video
Possum
Psycho (1998)
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
The Piano Teacher
Hidden
Union City
The Palm Beach Story

That's 71 movies this year, a staggering 50 down from last year which is just terrible! Mostly it's due to changes in my partner's working hours, but that's changed again recently and hopefully I can get the numbers back up for next year. Of course, that's still a long list to narrow down to my top three, and unlike books I don't have a site equivalent to Goodreads with which to guide my memory.

As usual, however, I'm discounting movies I've previously seen. So this knocks out the always-excellent "Walkabout"; foreign favourites "The Double Life Of Veronique" (superb second time around - wasn't as keen when I saw it on release) and "Les Amants Du Pont Neuf" (a firm favourite); in addition to "Union City" starring Dennis Lipscomb and Deborah Harry (again, another favourite, and which I viewed for research purposes...).

Those movies which I found annoying or awful are easy to chronicle, and this includes "The Family" (now I love Luc Besson but this film is an absolute stinker), "Dark Horse" (the 2011 film, there are many others with this title and I assume all of them must be better than this shite), and I was also disappointed by "Roma" (heard so much about it, but I didn't think it deserved the praise from someone who watches a lot of foreign films).

Similar to my book thread, I watched quite a few films this year based on books written by friends (those lucky buggers). Whilst (author name in parenthesis) "Wounds" (Nathan Ballingrud), "The Silence" (Tim Lebbon) and "Await Further Instructions" (Gavin Williams) all had something to recommend them, it was "The Ritual" (Adam Nevill) which I thought the best of these bunch. A brilliant interpretation of the book which came close to making my top three and which I would easily watch again.

2019 was also a year in which I watched a lot of Michael Haneke. I enjoyed all his films, with "Hidden" coming quite close to my final selection. He's an excellent, intrusive, filmmaker. "The Piano Teacher" was also a revelation.

Other favourites this year include Jean-Luc Godard's "The Image Book" (a melange of imagery), "Pity" (a deadpan Greek comedy drama), both "Ghost Stories" and "Get Out" which played nicely on 70s horror sensibilities, "Psycho" (it's taken me years to watch this Hitchcock classic, dulled only by knowing too much about it), "Damage" (the Louis Malle film with the always superb Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche), "T2: Trainspotting" (a surprisingly worthy successor), "The House That Jack Built" (Lars Von Trier's brilliant dissection of serial killing married to myth), "Funeral Parade of Roses" (I loved this Japanese drama film directed and written by Toshio Matsumoto, loosely adapted from Oedipus Rex and set in the underground gay culture of 1960s Tokyo with a very French New Wave sensibility), and "Berberian Sound Studio" (directed by Peter Strickland - the film I would have made if I had ever become a director). These last three were so close to reaching my final selection.

So, as usual, I get the feeling that another day might produce marginally different results, but – today – here are my top three movies I saw for the first time in 2019.

Again, in reverse order:

"Le Bonheur" (1965) - Agnès Varda

I think this is the only Varda film I've seen (she died this year, and I should keep up). It's a bittersweet story of a happy family which shatters when the male ambivalently takes another lover and cannot contain this extended happiness from his wife. Ultimately a story about male insensitivity and also the interchangeability of relationships, "Le Bonheur" broke my heart and made me cry. It's such a simple, effective film.


"Stan & Ollie" (2018) - Jon S Baird

Having loved Laurel & Hardy films from a very early age I still repeatedly rewatch and quote from them. The humour is timeless and hilarious. I would number many of their features and shorts amongst the best films - not just comedy - ever made, so coming to this biopic I was a little fretful that it would do them justice. I needn't have worried. I thought it perfectly pitched, an affectionate and loving biopic of the greatest double act that ever lived. Coogan and Reilly excelled in their roles and their wives were also extremely well played. The final dance scene somehow managed to transcend the movie and bring the real Stan & Ollie onto the stage. I'm sure they would have approved.


And the winner is...

"Suspiria" (2018) - Luca Guadagnino

Shock! Horror! I've chosen a remake as my favourite film of the year. Shock! Horror! Yet this is more a re-imagining of the original Dario Argento classic and a brilliantly realised piece of theatre to boot. If there's any fault in it then it's the unnecessary casting of Tilda Swinton in one of her three roles, although even this affords an unsettling disconnect which perhaps adds to the unease which is channeled throughout. The denouement is wickedly executed with panache and aplomb, and whilst it might have ended just a fraction before it did, this has remained a film I've thought about over and again since I watched it and for that reason alone thoroughly deserves the top spot this year.


Records:

I listened to the following full-length albums in 2019:

The Residents – Animal Lover
The Residents – Bunny Boy
Valerie June – Pushin’ Against A Stone
Coeur de Pirate – en cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé
Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour
Sparklehorse – Good Morning Spider
The Plastics – Welcome Back
The Residents – Tweedles
The Residents – Intruders
The Residents – Demons Dance Alone
The Residents – Bad Day on the Midway
Buzzcocks – Another Music In A Different Kitchen
Buzzcocks – Love Bites
Echobelly – Black Heart Lullabies
Buzzcocks – A Different Kind Of Tension
Bis – Social Dancing
Buzzcocks – All Set
Paul Smith – Diagrams
Gabby’s World – O.K.
JJ Burnel – Euroman Cometh
The xx – I See You
Jordan Reyne - Bardo
Hugh Cornwell and Robert Wiliams – Nosferatu
The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
The Flaming Lips – The Terror
The Residents – Duck Stab
Scott Walker – Scott 1
The Flaming Lips – Oczy Mlody
The B-52s – The B-52s
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Rust
Sparks – Hippopotamus
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth – Dirty
Bill Nelson – Sound on Sound
Bis – New Transistor Heroes
The Ravenonettes – Lust Lust Lust
Bis – data Panik etcetera
The Fall – Re-Mit
The Fall – Sublingual Tablet
New Found Glory – Radiosurgery
Sonic Youth – nyc ghosts & flowers
Sonic Youth – Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star
Blondie – Eat To The Beat
Marina – Love + Fear
Brigitte Fontaine – Kekeland
Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires Of The City
Vampire Weekend – The Father Of The Bride
Manaam – Manaam
Siekiera – Nowa Aleksandria
Fontaines D.C. – Dogrel
Mattiel – Mattiel
The Cramps – Off The Bone
Stump – A Fierce Pancake
Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
Magazine – Secondhand Daylight
Modern Eon – Fiction Tales
Joy Division – Closer
Polly Scattergood – Arrows
Bjork – Homogenic
The Stranglers – The Raven
Emilie Simon – The Big Machine
Mattiel – Satis Factory
The Residents – Eskimo
Ciccone – Eversholt Street
Idles – Joy As An Act Of Resistance
Taylor Swift – Lover
The Monochrome Set – Super Plastic City
Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression
Devo – Something For Everybody
Slits – Cut
Essential Logic – Fanfare In The Garden
X-Ray Spex – Germfree Adolescents
The White Stripes – The White Stripes
The White Stripes – De Stijl
The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
The White Stripes – Elephant
The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan
The White Stripes – Icky Thump
Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide
Blondie – Plastic Letters
Hugh Cornwell – Monster
Art Brut – Brilliant! Tragic!
Iggy Pop – Free
Ultravox - Vienna
Talking Heads - Remain In Light

That's 85 albums which isn't bad since most of these were listened to on headphones whilst cycling to and from work. I've never made an album list before, and as I've done with my book and movie list I will discount anything previously listened to. And unlike movies and books, predominantly most of these will be re-listens.

I revisited Buzzcocks following Pete Shelley's death, and also the entire White Stripes oeuvre on a whim (finding their first album and also "Get Behind Me Satan" to be my favourites). As usual I played some Stranglers, X-Ray Spex, Sonic Youth, Magazine and The Fall. The Flaming Lips also made their usual appearance. Unlike most years, I haven't written much fiction listening to music, so my go-to's Echobelly and Blonde Redhead didn't make an appearance (other than the new/old Echobelly record, "Black Heart Lullabies").

I think I have fairly eclectic tastes, but on the other hand quite conservative with the same names popping up quite regularly. And I never iPod shuffle, preferring to hear full albums rather than individual songs. I revisited several albums I haven't heard for many years: Modern Eon's excellent "Fiction Tales", Ultravox's "Vienna", Talking Heads' "Remain In Light" and Joy Divisions' surprisingly good "Unknown Pleasures" (my memory of this record not quite what I thought it to be).

When it came to new releases (to me, at least), I loved Valerie June's almost country "Pushin’ Against A Stone" (such a great voice), perennial favourite Coeur de Pirate's "en cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé", Marina's superb pop album "Love + Fear" (very close to making my top three), Vampire Weekend's "Father Of The Bride" (an album which benefits from repeated listens), Fontaine D.C.'s vibrant "Dogrel", and Iggy Pop's jazz-infused "Free".

Ultimately, though, my top three new (to me) records played this year were all 2019 releases. And here they are (in reverse order):


"Stunning Luxury" (2019) - Snapped Ankles

This band was recommended to me through several friends and when I saw they were anonymous creators dressed as trees who played log synthesisers it was impossible not to love them. I was lucky enough to see them live this year - oldest man in the mosh pit! - and it was absolutely joyous. I love repetitive rhythms and whilst the album doesn't quite capture the feel of the live gig, it's definitely an excellent starting place.


"Satis Factory" (2019) - Mattiel

Another band I was lucky enough to see live this year, this is an excellent record of garage-pop-rock type tunes which really got under my skin and rewarded numerous plays. Mattiel's vocal is just the right side of rough and the songs are stompingly good, gritty, and fresh (despite a plethora of influences). To take the usual advice with music, play it loud.


And the winner is...

"Lover" (2019) - Taylor Swift

Considering the absolute dogshite of the previous album, "Reputation", "Lover" is a glorious revelation, marrying all Swift's previous styles to create a career-defining record. We listened to this on the last day of our Cornish holiday, lights off, in silence, soaking it up, praying after each superb track that she wouldn't fuck it up on the next one, and joyous that she didn't. "Lover" is quite simply a fantastic record with superb and witty songwriting, room to breathe, and crystal-clear production. Swift has always been a storyteller at heart, and this record exemplifies that. It's also a record of love, proving there is no finer muse. There are eighteen songs here and none of them duds, each augmenting the one before and seguing into the one following. Favourites include "It's Nice To Have A Friend" (with steel drums and harps!), "The Man" (Swift's take on a female's progress through the music industry), and "Cornelia Street" (a paean to love, hope and trust). This record has had a permanent stay in the car CD player since August and is a must listen for those who think they know Swift but don't.

So that's it, my summary of what I read, watched and listened to in 2019! Drop back in next year, but in the meantime, here's my favourite song (and my favourite video) which I discovered in 2019: "Kekeland" by Brigitte Fontaine.

Mr Writing Year 2019

As has become annual I thought I'd do a quick blog post as to my literary achievements during 2019.

It's been a productive year in some respects but has felt completely unproductive in others. I feel this  is probably due to my own personal perception rather than anything else, as in terms of publications it's not been bad at all.

Usually I aim to write a short story a month, but due to a desire to focus on other projects and also a lack of impetus I only wrote seven short stories in 2019: "Life + Illusion = Love + Dream", "The Natural Environment", "The Song The Moon Taught Us", "Mobster Thermidor", "Fetch", "The Malaise Trap" and "All That Dead Beauty". A novel I began, "The Non-Conformists", I subsequently abandoned.

I sold four short stories this year: "Life + Illusion = Love + Dream" to the Pete Shelley tribute anthology, Love Bites, "Of Course, A Girl" to the Afterlives Of The Writers anthology, "The Girl With The Horizontal Walk" to be published as a chapbook by Salò Press (my partner runs this press, but it was her suggestion to take this story), and "All That Dead Beauty" to an anthology I'm currently not allowed to mention.

The following three stories were published this year in this order: "The Girl With The Horizontal Walk" as a chapbook from Salò Press, "Of Course, A Girl" in Afterlives Of The Writers from 5th Wall Press, and "Life + Illusion = Love + Dream" in Love Bites from Dostoyevsky Wannabe Press. Additionally, a short reminiscence on seeing the band The Smiths in 1983 & 1984 was included in The Smiths: The Day I Was There published by This Day In Music Books and edited by Richard Houghton. This year also saw me occasionally reviewing books again for Black Static magazine.

In addition to the short stories, I had two books published in 2019. The mini short story collection, "The Forest of Dead Children", through Black Shuck Books, and the novella "The Uneasy" from Eibonvale Press.

There are updates on two other book publications I mentioned last year. My eighth short story collection, "Frequencies of Existence", will be published next year by NewCon Press. Predominantly SF, there will be twenty-four stories in the book. Cover reveal here. And "O For Obscurity, Or, The Story of N", a creative non-fiction biography of the musician known as The Mysterious N Senada - who worked in association with and influenced The Residents - should appear through Psychofon Records in conjunction with a re-release of some of his material. This book was written after I decoded his diaries which were discovered in 2018.

I have a handful of stories awaiting publication that were originally accepted in previous years, and a few novels are also under consideration by various agents/publishers, as they were last year. My next project is a proposed film book for which I'll begin interviewing the director and actors in 2020. It's a speculative project at present, but hopefully will bear fruit. I'm quite excited about it.

As I said at the start of this post, from my perspective 2019 has been a quiet year, although putting it in words I don't think I've done too badly at all.

Life + Illusion = Love + Dream

My flash fiction piece, "Life + Illusion = Love + Dream", about the life of Pete Shelley has just been published in the anthology Love Bites from Dostoyevsky Wannabe, and as usual I'm blogging a few lines as to how the story came about for those who might be interested. It's 445 words in length.

Like many of my generation, punk had a massive impact on my formative years. Even though I was just 9 years old in 1976 I was aware of the scene and the brouhaha it was creating. The first single I actually bought was The Stranglers' "Five Minutes" in January 1978, and over the next few years I both kept up with the scene and caught up with the material I had missed. Buzzcocks - inevitably - were part of this education. Whilst I tended to avoid compilation albums, "Singles Going Steady", was a firm favourite. Shelley's succinct, heartfelt lyrics about relationships and breakdowns, backed with punchy furious music held an immediate appeal. I saw them live several times, mostly in the latter half of their career, and at every gig it was a joy to hear the material, a total immersement in mosh-pit mayhem.

The last time I saw Buzzcocks was in May 2018. I had dithered about going, as the previous time I'd seen them the sound hadn't been great and it took me a while to make up my mind. But it was an excellent gig and I fell in love with them all over again. Upon leaving I was determined I'd always see them when they toured, more than aware that too many soldiers of punk were no longer with us.

And then, only seven months later, Pete Shelley no longer was.

When I heard about the "Love Bites" anthology it was too late to submit a full-length piece, but the editors were still looking for flash fiction. An anthology to celebrate Shelley and the music he helped to create was a timely idea and I knew I wanted to be part of it. Shelley's death was unexpected and - like Mark E Smith's earlier that year - hit me hard. Whilst I don't tend to write flash fiction, the brevity suited the punk material, and I decided to write a fictional biopic covering Shelley's life through 'backstage' snapshots including direct quotes I had discovered watching interviews online. One of my favourite Buzzcocks songs, "Everybody's Happy Nowadays", contains one of my favourite lyrics ("life's an illusion / love is a dream") which formed the basis of my title. And as usual, once I had a title, everything fell into place.

Flash fiction often cannot provide much more than a snippet of the kernel of an idea, and I can't pretend that "Life + Illusion = Love + Dream" is particularly profound, however I think I've done Shelley justice, and that's all I can really hope for. I'm looking forward to reading the other contributors in this anthology too.

Here's an excerpt which is a direct interview quote. I love this. A sly shy nod of amusement which is more than a throwaway response and which I feel encapsulates Shelley's warmth and humour.

Interviewer: For you, where did punk come from?

Shelley: A little old lady in Dorset sent me a note saying check this out.

"Love Bites" is edited by Andrew Gallix, Tomoé Hill, and C.D.Rose and features contributions from the following: Emma Bolland, Victoria Briggs, Tobias Carroll, Shane Jesse Christmass, David Collard, Sarah-Clare Conlon, Lara Alonso Corona, Cathleen Davies, Jeremy Dixon, Sharron Duggal, Wendy Erskine, Gerard Evans, Javi Fedrick, Mark Fiddes, Andrew Gallix, Meave Haughey, Tomoé Hill, Richard V. Hirst, David Holzer, Andrew Hook, Tom Jenks, Jonathan Kemp, Luke Kennard, Mark Leahy, Neil Nixon, Russell Persson, Hette Phillips, Julie Reverb, C.D. Rose, Lee Rourke, Germán Sierra, Beach Sloth, NJ Stallard, Rob Walton. Buy it here.

Finally, whilst I usually write listening to music, quite strangely I didn't do so in this instance. However I did watch many YouTube interviews with Shelley on repeat.

Of Course, A Girl

My short story, "Of Course, A Girl", about the life of Zelda Fitzgerald has just been published in the anthology Afterlives of the Writers from 5th Wall Press, and as usual I'm blogging a few lines as to how the story came about for those who might be interested. Beware, there are likely to be spoilers for those who haven't read it, so it might be best to purchase a copy before reading on.

It was the writer Rhys Hughes who brought the guidelines of this anthology to my attention. Immediately I knew I wanted to write something. The guidelines were to choose a dead writer and write about the afterlife from their perspective. Considering I'd recently completed twelve celebrity Hollywood death stories blending fact and fiction from a similar angle for a collection titled "Candescent Blooms" (currently being submitted), the style of fiction required for the story had become natural to me. The only question was, who to pick?

The provisional site for the anthology contained a list of writers already included. I noticed a distinct lack of females. The reason assisted with my decision to choose a dead female author. But who? In all fairness, it didn't take long to make my choice. The relationship of Zelda Fitzgerald and her husband F Scott Fitzgerald had been one that had fascinated me for some time: how there were accusations of plagiarism on both sides, of how Zelda's career would always be foreshadowed by her more famous husband, how her fiction had been sidelined in favour of his. As myself and my partner - the poet, Sophie Essex - also work ideas off each other, the dynamics in such a relationship have always intrigued. So, Zelda it needed to be.

Perhaps the reasons can also be given in the email I sent to the editor, explaining my choice: The angle with Zelda and Scott is that Scott often ‘stole’ from Zelda’s diaries which meant there was a lot of ‘her’ writing in ‘his’ writing. Much more than the influence of another person, or simply including material from their lives, it was her actual written words which made it into his books. At first that relationship didn’t bother her, but gradually she began to resent this kind of plagiarism, particularly as Scott became increasingly dismissive of Zelda’s own attempts to succeed artistically (whether in literature or dance or art). So whilst it might be wrong to suggest that Scott only succeeded because of Zelda, there is a strong argument that without her his novels would have been different. In her only novel, Save Me The Waltz, Zelda effectively turns the table on Scott as the plot reflects a semi-autobiographical account of their life and marriage. Scott was furious that she included scenes which he had been intending to use himself - so it was a marriage of idealization for both at the start which was informed and reflected within both of their works, which then gradually turned sour. Zelda died in a fire at a psychiatric hospital, and my story represents her reflecting on her life shortly after that death. I chose to write about her rather than Scott, because I find her the most interesting character, but also because of the extent her life poured into his, leaving her more of a shell when it came to her own fiction. If we look at it from the view of her afterlife, her creativity was often belittled by Scott so he could use her words himself - I see her considering that loss, evaluating it. And that’s why I thought her to be an ideal subject for my story and this anthology.

As with my Hollywood stories, the piece mixes fact, fiction, gossip and quotes to create a composite reality - a potted fictionalised biography - told by Zelda as she dies in the hospital fire that consumes her. This is the total of her afterlife.

Here's an extract: I reach for the bottle, my carelessness knocks it from the bedside table. Somewhere in the house I hear F's fingers hitting his keys like a plague of locusts. I shuffle my memories: pick and discard. The flowing of words is a two way process, and I am coming - slowly, but defiantly - to my own moment on the page. Meanwhile, picking up the bottle from the floor, uncapping it, gazing through the contents, it is clear that as light passes from one medium to another, for example between air and glass, it bends. I swig, look again.

The title, "Of Course, A Girl", which I feels both emphasises her sex and being proud of it but which also signifies the dismissal of her fiction because of it, comes from an F Scott Fitzgerald quote about the publication of his first novel, "This Side of Paradise": I have so many things dependent on its success - including, of course, a girl.

Afterlives of the Writers features 22 dead author stories written by 12 live authors. Other contributors are Nicholas Belardes, Žana Branković, M.T. DeSantis, Alex R. Encomienda, Rhys Hughes, Ian Drew Forsyth, Michael McCormick, Treyvon Mersault, George Salis, Marcella Shepherd and Amanda R. Woomer. But it from Amazon in the UK here or in the USA here

Finally I wrote the entirety of the story listening to the title track of Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats" on repeat.

The Girl With The Horizontal Walk

My short story, "The Girl With The Horizontal Walk", has just been published as a standalone chapbook by Salò Press, and as usual I'm blogging a few notes about how the piece came to be written. There will probably be spoilers for those yet to read it.

The subject matter of "The Girl With The Horizontal Walk" is Marilyn Monroe. I previously had no more than a cursory interest in the actress until I read a fictionalised biography of her work titled "Blonde" by Joyce Carol Oates. "Blonde" is an absolute tour-de-force, a brilliant piece of writing reimagining Monroe's life, which is heart-breaking, exhilarating and an absolute page turner (for all of it's 600 pages). After reading the book a few years ago I felt compelled to write my own Monroe story. But where was I to start?

After doing some research I became intrigued at the premise of her last - unfinished - movie: "Something's Got To Give". In the film Monroe's character (Ellen Arden) is a photographer declared legally dead after being lost at sea in the Pacific. Her husband remarries. Monroe then returns after being rescued and takes an assumed name, Ingrid Tic, moving in with her husband - who recognises her, of course - but concealing her real identity from the new wife. Complications ensue.

In my story, a dead Monroe attempts to process her life through the character of Ellen Arden who is an actress working on a film about a photographer named Marilyn Monroe who goes missing after an altercation with President Kennedy. Arden increasingly identifies with Monroe, in a role which itself is threatened by a make-up girl, Baker, Arden's dead ringer who the producers encourage to work as a stand-in on some of Arden's scenes. Complications ensue.

As per the blurb: "As Marilyn Monroe's body lies in the morgue, fragments of her unfinished final movie coalesce in a swansong of remnants, gossip, memories, doppelgangers and subterfuge."

"I play a photographer, Marilyn Monroe. I get to go platinum. Preferably a wig. Marilyn doesn't take great pictures, but she's always in the right place at the right time. Plus she's pretty - we know how many doors that opens, front and back. She carves out a career for herself, Life, Movieland, Modern Screen, all those covers. She gets invited to all the right parties, then some of the wrong ones. So there's then a photo of the president; in flagrante. Before you know it, she's killed."

The symbol on the cover, incidentally, is the chemical compound for the barbiturates which were found in Monroe's body by the coroner after her death.

Writing "The Girl With The Horizontal Walk" has led me to create several pieces of fiction under similar premises - which I affectionately call my 'celebrity death' stories - whereby character's attempts to understand their deaths are subverted by confused memories of their life. These now form a collection, "Candescent Blooms", currently seeking a publisher. I've blogged about two of the stories which have also been published at the following links: Grace Kelly and Olive Thomas.

"The Girl With The Horizontal Walk" is 16pp for £3.99 and can be purchased here.

The Uneasy

My ten thousand word short story, "The Uneasy", has been just published by Eibonvale Press as a standalone chapbook so as usual I'm blogging a few thoughts as to how the piece came to be written.

As a starting point, the back cover blurb is as follows: In the Paris from which Andre Breton spun his webs of revolutionary art and which Louis Aragon documented through le merveilleux quotidian, Andrew Hook weaves the poignant and erotic story of a British expatriate and her increasingly surreal quest for sexual fulfilment - a beautiful journey from the familiar to a place where sex itself becomes the ultimate unreality.

"The Uneasy" originated from a discussion between myself and my partner - the poet, Sophie Essex - as to whether we should write a collaborative piece whereby our two styles were conjoined to make a third voice. My writing tends towards story whereas hers is more abstract. I suggested we write the same story: with my version forming a book which could then be flipped over to read her more surreal interpretation. For various reasons, this didn't progress, but the germ of the idea was there: to write a sexual discovery story through surrealistic techniques as a counterpart to books such as the Fifty Shades series. I don't remember where the title came from, but it seemed to fit.

Another jumping off point was Louis Aragon's surrealist novel "Paris Peasant" which I had recently read. For numerous reasons it made sense to set the story there, and I wanted a distant, almost mechanical style to the writing which might echo the Aragon as well as trip through Paris.

Here's a bit of it:

The men wore plague masks of the bird beak fashion, together with drab ankle-length grey coats, boots, gloves, and wide-brimmed hats. She could smell lavender from crushed flowers pressed into the nose cone. They pirouetted around the bed, with each turn worn fingers unbuttoned their garments, until all that was left were the masks and their penises swirled like guy ropes in a sea breeze and they spun faster becoming smaller before they winked out of existence.

I should point out that there are traces of Sophie's writing in the book. Those are the best bits. And by coincidence Eibonvale have just published her first poetry collection.

"The Uneasy" is available from Eibonvale Press, here.

The Forest of Dead Children

My new book - a micro-collection of five themed short stories titled "The Forest of Dead Children" - has now been published by Black Shuck Books. Here's some background into these stories and how they developed into the book.

Whilst I'd been aware of Black Shuck Books for sometime - particularly their Great British Horror series - I hadn't seen their Shadows imprint until the Edge-Lit event in Derby in July 2018. I was immediately struck by the slim format and excellent covers and struck up a conversation with publisher Steve Shaw as to whether they were taking submissions. It was at this point that I discovered the collections were loosely themed, and without a theme in mind I decided to leave it there.

However, conventions are always great places to fan creative flames and it wasn't long before I was back home and wondering if I had something or could write something which might fit a theme. I had recently written a story titled "The Harvest" about a man whose child dies when left in a hot car: but the original title of the piece was "The Forest of Dead Children". I'd changed the title - something I rarely do - because the resulting story didn't quite match it; but I had been planning on using the title again. Suddenly, the theme of dead children became apparent. I realised I had two other pieces already written which would work with the theme, and "The Forest of Dead Children" seemed perfect as an overarching title for the collection. Not only that, the previous evening cycling home I had been behind another cyclist with a young child on the back of their bike. Their child was asleep, head lolling from side to side, and it crossed my mind they might be dead (I'm a barrel of laughs, me). This idea tied in with a story title I was intending to use, called "The Rhythm of Beauty". The collection was taking shape.

I knew Steve was looking for a minimum of 20,000 words and I tend to write short pieces. This meant I would need to write one story which would be much longer and form the basis for the collection to hang upon. Having a title story seemed the best option, but I wanted something quirkier than that. For a while I'd had an idea about children whose lives are extinguished through being forced to be suicide bombers, or via child sacrifice or other rituals and how these stories almost always have a non-Western setting. I wanted to challenge that perception and place them in settings both familiar to Western readers but incongruous with perceived stereotypes. I felt the title would encompass this, with a tweak: "The ______ of ____ ________". Ideal for missing children. Approaching Steve, he was happy to take a look and subsequently happy to publish it.

So the stories in this collection are as follows:

"Shipwrecked In The Heart Of The City" (previously published in the anthology "Night Light" from Midnight Street Press and previously blogged about here).

There was nothing for it. He took off his clothes, pulled the sheets from the bed until all that remained was the bare wooden frame. He curled up, foetus-like, his head bent in supplication, his knees close to his chest, his arms tight, little fists tensed as if expecting to box. After a moment he felt for his umbilical cord where it was squashed between one leg and his stomach, and he straightened it, pointed it away from his body, as though it were an arrow to another place.

"The Rhythm of Beauty": Frisch attempts to determine the source of his daughter's night terrors whilst battling his own resulting lack of sleep.

They fell silent within their room, whilst the tumult continued on the other side of the wall, Esme battling what appeared to be a physical demon, incoherent drama forcing itself from her mouth, snatches of words amidst a gale of noise. Frisch felt guilty, waiting for the act to subside was a paradigm of boredom.

"My Tormentors": A Kafkaesque allegory where a mother's attempts to reach a hypothetical castle are subverted by her two young assistants.

At her lowest, the assistants are an antumbra, darkly leaching her personality as though she had ever given it away for free. Morning light gradually picks off the mist as though busting ghosts, sucking dampness dry in the fluid-sperm-wriggle manner of vacuuming ectoplasm.

"The ______ of ____ ________": Four linked stories dealing with instances of child suicide bombers, child sacrifice, infanticide for financial reasons and ritualised child abuse.

Amanda made the first small cut on the roof of Loren's mouth with a scalpel so sharp Loren didn't register any pain and only realised the procedure had been concluded when she tasted copper in her mouth.

"The Harvest": A father spends some quality time at the beach with his daughter on an exceptionally hot day following which she succumbs to sunstroke and passes away amidst surrealistic reverie.

Her limbs ghosted over brilliant white daisies centred with yolk-round spots, buttercups coated slick, poppies edging with the brittleness of crepe paper, with tiny breathing hairs. In the distance: mountains, peaks, sky. Tumbling: blue replaced green replaced blue. She accentuated her thoughts, pushed against the reverb, freed to elasticity.

So why the plethora of stories about dead children? Having had two children I'm more than aware of the responsibility I have towards their mortality but am also painfully aware of how difficult it can be to cope. Children are such a drain on time and resources with varying degrees of emotional payback, it's no wonder we fantasise as to how life might have been without them.

"The Forest of Dead Children" is available through Black Shuck Books.