Doug Johnstone on Half a Life by Darin Strauss: "a fascinating short memoir about how the author hit someone with his car and killed them when he was still a teenager. Far from being a harrowing misery memoir, this is a beautifully written and ultimately uplifting examination of the banality of grief and guilt."
Doug Johnstone
What's currently on your bedside table?
There is a massive pile of books next to my bed, at least thirty, but at the top of the pile are:
Peter Leonard, All He Saw Was The Girl - this is the latest fantastic thriller from Elmore Leonard's son - it's his third, and it's set partly in Rome, partly in Detroit. Leonard is every bit the match of his dad in terms of zippy dialogue, dark humour and breakneck plotting.
Stephen King, On Writing - a brilliant book that's part memoir, part creative writing discourse from a man who knows a thing or two about the craft of writing. Very insightful, clearly written and pretty funny too, I'd recommend it to any and all aspiring writers, and plenty of published ones too.
Simon Garfield, Just My Type - I'm a total font nerd, I love typography and this book is a wonderful sideways look at the world of type design, taking in the history of the subject and the quirkier side of how letters look.
Which book/s would you recommend right now?
The best things I've read recently have all been by young American writers:
David Vann, Legend of a Suicide and Caribou Island - Vann is a genius, a brilliant prose writer in the style of Tobias Wolff or Raymond Carver, who has written these two amazing books set in Alaska. The first is a fictionalized version of Vann's own father's real-life suicide when Vann was a teenager, and is the most shocking thing I've read in years. Caribou Island is more rounded and ambitious, the story of the breakdown of a marriage set against the remote and brutal backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness. Both books are very bleak, but breathtaking.
Willy Vlautin, Lean on Pete - Vlautin is also the singer in alt.country outfit Richmond Fontaine, and another amazing novelist. This third novel is a heartbreaking story of a boy down on his luck and the horse he saves from the knackers yard. Evokes downtrodden smalltown Americana better than anyone else I've read.
Darin Strauss, Half a Life - a fascinating short memoir about how the author hit someone with his car and killed them when he was still a teenager. Far from being a harrowing misery memoir, this is a beautifully written and ultimately uplifting examination of the banality of grief and guilt.
Which book/s are you planning to take with you on your next journey?
A few things I'm keen to read, so I'll be packing them are:
Dorian Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per Minute - Lynskey is a music writer, and this is a history of protest songs, essentially. Cleverly, Lynskey has looked at specific songs and extrapolated from there, and if his newspaper journalism is anything to go by, this will be fascinating.
Judith Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands - This is a simply beautiful and weird book by a German artist. It's subtitled Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will, and is a combination of typography, cartography and fiction - it's beautifully bound and illustrated, and each page tells a little story to accompany the map of the island in question, which are all incredibly obscure, real places. Like I say, very strange, but somehow compelling.
Gutter Magazine, issue #4 - this is the finest literary journal in Scotland by a mile, showcasing the best in new writing - fiction and poetry - across the country. I'm biased, cos I've got a short story in it (and my novel is reviewed in it too), but there are over 200 pages of great stuff in there, and it's invaluable for anyone interested in what's happening in Scotland's literature scene at the moment. I'll be checking out the competition.
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Doug Johnstone is a freelance journalist and the author of two previous novels, Tombstoning and The Ossians.
His latest novel, Smokeheads, is published by Faber and Faber.
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Thursday, 24 March, 2011
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