Review of the Year 2009 / Features / Untitled Books

"I'm impressed that London has a literary conversation." - David Vann

Review of the Year 2009

2009 was the year that saw the demise of Borders, the deaths of John Updike and Frank McCourt, the wrath of Alain de Botton and the resignation of Ruth Padel as Oxford professor of poetry. We asked some leading writers and poets for their highs and lows of the last twelve months in literature.

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Michel Faber - Novelist

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Most of the time, I live in a converted railway station in a remote part of the Scottish highlands, happily ignorant of what's going on in the literary marketplace. The last publishing "low" that I remember was quite a few years ago - Victoria Beckham with blouse unbuttoned to display her synthetic breasts while signing copies of her "autobiography" at Waterstones. No doubt the trade has seen even tackier phenomena since then but in the long run it doesn't matter. Good publishers still persist in putting out fine fiction (bless 'em) and the swill burbles slowly down the drain of history. The truly great novels of our time seldom get literary prizes but readers discover them anyway, somehow.

My own fiction has been a struggle this year but I did contribute an essay to an exotic tome called Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and its Legacy (Black Dog Publishing), a dream come true. I'm currently reading a powerfully deranged phantasmagoria by Nick Blinko called The Haunted Head, lovingly published in hardback by Coptic Cat. It's the sort of thing no mainstream publisher would touch, but it's out there and I'm delighted that it is.

The Fire Gospel is published by Canongate

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Sukhdev Sandhu - Writer and Cultural Historian

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In a year of techno-deterministic melancholia about the state of publishing, I was consistently impressed by the cussedness, originality and exciting range of titles brought out by The New Press in Manhattan. Occupying that increasingly precarious but culturally pivotal space between the micro-indie house and the corporate-boutique imprint, this not-for-profit publisher, established in 1990 as a radical alternative to the growing homogenization of the big houses, has issued a slew of great books: Examined Life, by filmmaker Astra Taylor, is a probing and hugely engaging set of interviews with leading ethical and political philosophers that's also a terrific companion volume to her documentary on the same topic; Secret Identities, edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma, is a funny, eye-grabbing and politically incisive anthology about Asian American superheroes that should appeal to hipsters and comic-book fans alike; Fakers, by Paul Maliszewski, is a study of hoaxers and con artists throughout American history - from the New York Sun's 1835 moon hoax to the author's own bogus letters to the business newspaper that employed him - that has special resonance in an age when the public is finally seeing through the mendacities of Goldman Sachs and their ilk. Support the good guys! Support The New Press!

Night Haunts: A Journey Through the London Night is published by Verso

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Hilary Mantel - Novelist

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The brilliant, modest and much-shortlisted young writer Edward Hogan (Blackmoor: Simon & Schuster) finally carried off a prize - the £10,000 Desmond Elliott first novel award.

Diana Athill's memoirs, published in one volume as Life Class (Granta) should find this wise, witty former publisher the wider audience she deserves.

Adam Thorpe's novel Hodd (Jonathan Cape) was worth more sustained attention and appreciation than it received; not the easiest read, maybe, but subtle and profound.

Lost: Geoffrey Moorhouse, writer, historian and able generalist, who wrote with great authority across a range of topics: a shining example of old-school professionalism.

Personally speaking... the 500^th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession has been a lucky year for me; I am writing The Mirror & The Light, a sequel to Wolf Hall, which will conclude the adventures of Henry's minister Thomas Cromwell.

Wolf Hall is published by Fourth Estate

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Sean O'Brien - Poet and Novelist

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The high points of my reading of new work this year were, in no particular order, Janice Galloway's This is Not About Me (Granta), Don Paterson's Rain (Faber), Ian Jack's The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain (Jonathan Cape), Jane Draycott's Over (Carcanet) and Michael Donaghy's Collected Poems (Picador).

The most pleasing event was Seamus Heaney's reading for the Newcastle Centre for Literary Arts at Newcastle University, his first reading here in 25 years, an extraordinary occasion which affirmed the power of poetry to an audience who are still talking about it.

The low points? Gordon Burn's death at 61 was a terrible loss. His range of literary talents seemed unrivalled, and much remained for him to do.

Afterlife is published by Picador

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Joe Dunthorne - Novelist and Poet

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My favourite poetry book was Matthew Welton's new one, with its 101 word title, "We needed coffee but we'd got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste..." (Carcanet) I don't know how he manages to use strict formal constraints and be funny and warm, but he does with it aplomb.

I was a little slow on the uptake with the Letters of Ted Hughes (Faber) but - good God - they're brilliant. In the bit I just read, he's just gone to America with Sylvia Plath. "The food, the general opulence, is frightening. My natural instinct is to practice little private filthiness - I spit, pee on shrubbery etc, and a have a strong desire to sleep on the floor."

The other thing I really loved (for not entirely selfless reasons) is the Faber New Poets series. Four beautiful pamphlets from four excellent younger poets. I'd highlight one but they're all ace: Fiona Benson, Toby Martinez De Las Rivas, Heather Phillipson and Jack Underwood. And, now you mention it, I do have my own Faber New Poets pamphlet coming out in May next year.

In other news, the film of my novel, Submarine, (Penguin) is in production, starring Paddy Considine, Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor. I am very, very excited.

There must have been lows but, right now, I can't think of any!

Submarine is published by Penguin

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Charles Cumming - Spy Novelist

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I have a bad habit of starting books and never finishing them. I do it particularly with novels written by friends. However, this year I turned over a new leaf and managed to get through The Music Room by William Fiennes (Picador) and One Day by David Nichols (Hodder & Stougton). I've known William since he was 17, but had little knowledge of his early childhood (when we get together, I try to make sure the conversation revolves around me). But here it is, an astonishing and moving story laid out in some of the most beautiful prose I've ever come across.

David's book is a comic novel with a twist; the twist being that he is not only a very funny writer but also a razor-sharp observer of human behaviour. One Day has been disgustingly successful, but deservedly so. My other highlight of the year was discovering Dennis Lehane - I had no idea how good he was until I picked up Mystic River (Bantam). I was also knee-deep in books about the Cambridge Spies and greatly admired John Banville's imagined biography of Anthony Blunt. Needless to say, I didn't finish it.

Typhoon is published by Michael Joseph

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Charles Boyle - Writer and Publisher

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Prizes are like school speech-days and tend to exclude the wayward genius at the back of the class. My reading delights of this year (none of them on shortlists and none of them exactly a 2009 book, but never mind) have included A Chapter of Hats (Bloomsbury), stories by Machado de Assis; Todd McEwen's Who Sleeps with Katz (Granta), a New York novel of two male friends (drinkers, smokers and appreciators-of-women), both exuberant and elegaic; and The Woman from Hamburg (Other Press), stories by the Polish writer Hanna Krall, whose journalistic research (chiefly into Jewish-Polish-German relations during WW2 and after) is convincingly married to the truths of storytelling.

That said, I was enormously proud that a CB editions book, J. O. Morgan's Natural Mechanical, did win the Aldeburgh Poetry Prize - because this was an announcement of the book's distinction from a public platform, and for small presses especially, whose books are ignored by most of the review channels, such attention can be the difference between life and death.

24 for 3 is published by Bloomsbury

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David Vann - Novelist

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In hardcover, I thought Colm Toibin's Brooklyn (Viking), Penelope Lively's Family Album (Fig Tree), Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (Faber), and William Trevor's Love and Summer (Viking) were all great reads. In paperback, my favourites were Ross Raisin's God's Own Country (Viking) and Tobias Wolff's Our Story Begins (Bloomsbury).

I was thrilled to visit London for a week at the end of October for the release of my new book, Legend of a Suicide, and I especially enjoyed reading at Book Slam. What an amazing venue! I'm impressed, too, that London has a literary conversation, and I love the interesting radio formats (sitting in a studio with book critics on Simon Mayo's show, for instance, and being part of a varied conversation on BBC Radio Scotland's Book Cafe). We don't have any of this in the US. The UK is just a far better place for a book to live. I'm looking forward to Edinburgh in August and will return again in January or February 2011 for the release of my new novel, Caribou Island (Viking).

Legend of a Suicide is published by Penguin

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Luke Wright - Poet and Publisher

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With the birth of my son and the launch of my own small press, I haven't found as much time for reading as I would have liked. However, I really enjoyed John Osborne's Radio Head (Simon & Schuster), the story of an office temp's mission to re-ignite his life by immersing himself in British radio. I was also excited to turn up as a character in Tim Clare's brilliant We Can't All be Astronauts (Ebury), even if he did make me into a bit of a dickhead (maybe I am a dickhead?).

Poetry wise I have thoroughly enjoyed Tim Turnbull's new collection, indeed anything produced by the top-notch Donut Press, and have twice missed my stop wrapping my thoughts around Ross Sutherland's excellent Things To Do Before You Leave Town (Penned in the Margins).

In September I set up Nasty Little Press with my wife Sally and illustrator Sam Ratcliffe. Sally edits, Sam makes the books look beautiful and I scout talent from the UK's exciting live poetry scene. In 2010 we publish John Osborne, Byron Vincent and Martin Figura. We live at nastylittlepress.org.

Our first pamphlet was my own High Performance. The first print run is almost gone and we're turning a small profit. My passion for publishing grows daily. Roll on 2010.

High Performance is published by Nasty Little Press

Tuesday, 22 December, 2009

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Issue 20 / February - March 2010

"I'm impressed that London has a literary conversation." - David Vann