Daring Little Instruments

Short stories by nature are daring little instruments and almost always represent commensurate daring in their makers. For one thing, short stories want to give us something big but want to do it in precious little time and space. For another, they succeed by wilfully falsifying many of the observable qualities of the lived life they draw upon. They also leave out a lot of life and try to make us not worry about it. They often do funny things with time - things we know can't be done, really - but then make us go along with that. They persuade us that the human-being-like characters they show us can be significantly known on the strength of rather slight exposure; and they make us believe that entire lives can change on account of one little manufactured moment of clear-sightedness. You could say, based on this evidence, that the most fundamental character trait of short stories, other than their shortness, would seem to be audacity. More than even the sestina, short stories are the high-wire act of literature, the man keeping all those pretty plates up and spinning on skinny sticks.

An excellent piece by novelist Richard Ford on the art of the short story in the Guardian today, taken from The New Granta Book of the American Short Story which is due to be launched in the UK on Monday.

This I must have!

And The Next Big (American) Writer Is ...

The guys at Granta magazine bring their crystal balls out of the cupboard every ten years to predict the most important writers of the future. They've done it with British writers with a great degree of success: a glance at the lists for 1983, 1993, 2003 reads like a Who's Who of the British literary scene.

And now, for the second time they are doing the same with American writers, the Guardian reports.

They didn't do a bad job last time with Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Lorrie Moore and David Guterson making the list. But most of the writers, I still haven't heard of, despite a more than average ear to the ground. (It's probably something to do with my Britlit bias: apologies to my American friends.)

These then are the chosen ones, and if you want to read more about them, there's a biodata of each on the Granta website.

Daniel Alarcón
Kevin Brockmeier
Judy Budnitz
Christopher Coake
Anthony Doerr
Jonathan Safran Foer
Nell Freudenberger
Olga Grushin
Dara Horn
Gabe Hudson
Uzodinma Iweala
Nicole Krauss
Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Yiyun Li
Maile Meloy
ZZ Packer
Jess Row
Karen Russell
Akhil Sharma
Gary Shteyngart
John Wray

How many have you heard of? If you said "All of them", sorry, you're bluffing. Seven have not been published yet and make their debut in the latest edition of the magazine.

A.L.Kennedy (herself Granta listed twice) on the Guardian blog admits she's only heard of one them.

I feel nicely smug because I've heard of Jonathan Safran Foer, have bought Uzodinma Iweala's novel, and have read (and loved!) Yiyun Li and Rattawat Lapcharoensap. (Come to think of it, it seems that some good writers from elsewhere have been conveniently appropriated. Poor Yiyun Li probably doesn't even have her green card yet!!)

The age limit for "young writers" has now apparently been lowered from 40 to 35. Says Granta editor Ian Jack:

People seem to be writing (and publishing) fiction sooner ... they have, at least in theory, a head start on their predecessors and should be getting better, quicker.

In the introduction to the current issue of the magazine which brings together samples of the writing, Ian Jack points to a changes in focus: writers' interest in social class has "ebbed" and in its place is "a concern with death, uncertainty and the outside world". He also observes that nearly all of the writers on the list have attended creative writing courses.

But won't be all sunshine and roses for listed writers from hereonin if Kennedy's own experience is anything to go by. She described the dubious pleasures of:

... touring the country for readings, largely to tiny audiences, and sitting in a cupboard with my fellow authors to sign so many copies of Granta that by the end of it all, my signature was so permanently mangled I had to notify my bank. And it meant I attended a party at the Saatchi gallery and got to see the Blood Head and Patrick Stewart.

But come to think of it, the first time I heard of A.L.Kennedy was on a Granta list, and I have, since, bought her books.

I think I will make my predictions about the most promising young Malaysian writers, but hey, I'm going to seal up the paper and bury it in a time-capsule ... and blog about it ten years hence!

Litt-erary Appreciation (Or How Many Puns Can I Get Out of This Guy's Name?)

It wasn't that I hadn't heard of Toby Litt - there he was, smartly groomed and besuited, looking out from pages of a Sunday Times magazine I'd hoarded in my drawer with its article ("The Write Young Things") on the writers Granta magazine had chosen as it's best of 2003. Other chosens included Monica Ali, Zadie Smith, A L Kennedy, David Mitchell and Pete Ho Davis.

I just hadn't read a single thing he'd written till this wake-up call: the video-conference with the writer organised by the British Council as the latest event in its 'Meet the UK Author' series which I was to chair. I then had to do a mad dash round local bookshops to find at least some of his work so that I could have my own mini-Littfest. I managed five books in two weeks which ain't bad going. He's written seven altogether - and as Joanne Thorpe of British Council cleverly noticed, the titles follow in alphabetical order. Litt aims to have all 26 letters of the alphabet covered during his writing career. (He jokes that a word often associated with his prolific output is "churned".) Leon Wing who came along for the session had read all - just as he had read everything Beryl Bainbridge had written at the previous session. It was so good to have him along.

I began with his second collection of short fiction, Exhibitionism, an interesting collection, though some of the stories I felt were stronger than others. The more surreal pieces (Dreamgirls, The Waters) reminded me of Murukami, but the story I liked best was the one about the psychologically cojoined lesbian lovers in Mimi (Both of Her) and Me (Hardly There at All). Then there's the quaintly titled On the Etiquette of Eye-Contact During Oral Sex which I suppose is the story everyone will turn to first. It's amusing, but as in his story about the porn industry written in the form of a shooting script, - sometimes the idea behind the story turns out to be wittier than the story itself.

The first novel I picked up Finding Myself, a sort of Virginia Wolf meets chick lit (thanks to Litt's remarkable ventriloquism) meets Big Brother, proved to be amusing, but pretty soon the joke wore thin and I must confess that I packed it in well before the end, more than anything because the narrative voice got right up my nose.

Litt's first novel Beatniks described as a British road movie proved a quick and enjoyable read. The book was intended as a tribute to Keroac and came out on the 40th anniversary of the publication of On the Road. The book was pacey, well-plotted and I liked the three main characters very much. Litt also writes sex well and if you don't know what yabyum is, do read the book and find out! Litt has written a screenplay for the film and perhaps one day it will come to production.

Please don't read Deadkidsongs, Litt's third novel about four little boys who form a gang, unless you have a very strong stomach. It certainly makes you want to ask what kind of warped imagination comes up with a story as violent as this? (No-one actually asked it, and Litt looked so poised and so damn ... normal on screen.) I actually read much of it in the back of taxis and nearly caused an accident a couple of times when I screamed out loud.

I felt the book must owe something to Lord of the Flies, but it was a link that Litt really didn't want to make. How I'd have loved to have argued this point with him further! (If only there were a virtual bar to adjourn too ... that, and not being able to get your copies autographed are the drawbacks of this technology!)

Ghost Story is Litt's most recent work, a deeply personal book which asks what happens after the worst thing has happened? The worst thing in this case is miscarriage, and the first part of the book tells in harrowing detail how Litt and his partner Leigh lost three babies. (Their story has a happy ending though as they finally have had the much longed for baby.) The main part of the book is a fictional account of a couple coming to terms with the loss of their second child. It is beautifully written, and there were whole passages I went back to reread for the sheer beauty of the language. Litt uses psychic distance in a unique way to draw the reader gradually further and further into the minds of the main characters, absorbing their grief and inability to get past it. The ending is ... perfect.

Leon asked such insightful questions - particularly about Ghost Story which blew him away, that Litt paid him the biggest compliment I think any writer can pay: "I've found my ideal reader ... and he lives in Malaysia."