What we’re reading… Bed by David Whitehouse

Here at Book Festival HQ we’re lucky enough to have every book in the programme at our disposal. Over the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you some reviews of what us Book Festival folk have been reading. Today it’s Bed by David Whitehouse...

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you went to bed, never to get up again?

That’s what Mal did. And David Whitehouse’s extraordinary story tells the tale of what happened to him, and to his long-suffering parents, his loyal brother and his neglected girlfriend.

Mal was no ordinary child. He was a dreamer. A non-conformist with a penchant for taking his clothes off at inappropriate moments.

When the harsh realities of the grown-up world failed to meet his expectations of how life should be, Mal decided to do something drastic, something extraordinary. And so, on his twenty-fifth birthday, he went to bed, forever.

What ensues is a life story told in graphic yet surprisingly un-shocking detail about what happens when a man takes to his bed for decades with food as his only comfort. Whitehouse's style is refreshingly straightforward. His observations about the everyday things with which we are familiar makes us see them in a new light. Whilst his matter-of-fact descriptions make the extraordinary aspects of the story seem mundane: the realities of what happens to the human form when over-fed and starved of movement; the basic practicalities of housing an ever-expanding body; the complex relationships that enable and perpetuate the situation by killing with kindness. These are all territories that Whitehouse explores with his sparse, honest wit, providing a vivid account of what life is like when affected by extreme, ever-expanding, all-consuming obesity.

Tender, touching and funny, Bed is ultimately a story of love in its many forms: the accepting love between brothers; the understated love of a father for his children; the unconditional, yet stifling love of a mother for her favourite son; the twisted, adoring love of strangers for a local celebrity/freak-show; and the bitter-sweet, all-consuming, unrequited love and its slow transformation into something tangible.

David Whitehouse will beappearing at the Book Festival on Monday 15 August at 5pm. Tickets cost £7 (£5 concessions)

What we’re reading…The Raw Man by George Makana Clark

Here at Book Festival HQ we’re lucky enough to have every book in the programme at our disposal. Over the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you some reviews of what us Book Festival folk have been reading. Today it’s The Raw Man by George Makana Clark...

‘I built my house from borrowed memory, every detail as it was described by Gordon long ago in the complete darkness, three miles beneath the earth.’

Sergeant Gordon is a white man from Scottish and African descendancy. He is a soldier, war criminal, prisoner, convicted pervert, and a raw man. He can also read a person’s history through their blood. 

George Makana Clark’s haunting debut is a work which delves into the ritual of organic storytelling; storytelling not only as a means of resurrecting ones ancestral history and the memories of ones own past, but also as a device of confession and reconciliation. As the narrator recounts the stories of Gordon’s past (as told to him during the years of darkness they spent imprisoned in the guts of a copper mine), his own past is intertwined with that of his friend, as his friend’s memories had already interweaved with the lives of those whose blood he read.

The roots of the finished tale stretch deep into the territories of war, slavery, racism and violence, while desperately clinging onto the brighter aspects within everyday life: love, sex, family and friendships. All the while time ticks on like the rhythm of your heart ‘da diddly da dee da dee da dum’, ‘the women wail for their lost children’ and the roots of the mahogany tree grow deeper into the ancient earth. A powerful and life-consuming novel.

 

George Makana Clark will be appearing at the Book Festival on 15 August

Theresa Breslin takes the Great Silk Road to Elsewhere

The latest addition to our Elsewhere new writing project, On the shoulder of others, is a mysterious story set against the backdrop of the Great Silk Road written by award-winning author Theresa Breslin. Here Theresa describes the trip she took to Uzbekistan, which inspired her Elsewhere story…

It was a big dream of mine to travel along the Great Silk Road. I’d thought about it ever since reading the adventures of Marco Polo when I was about twelve years old, and hearing my father recite Coleridge’s magnificent poem that begins:

‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

Last September, injected with medically prescribed health-protecting substances, fortified by various vitamins, weighed down with a skip load of anti-diarrhoea tablets and carrying a packet of Jacob’s cream crackers (proven on my various research trips in the past to be the best sustenance for a gippy tummy) plus a large sun hat, off I went to cross the desert and travel through Uzbekistan.  

Land of the Khans, of the mighty Timur, the warrior known as Tamerlane, who crushed the Golden Horde; meeting place of ancient nations and empires, with a fabulously rich history, Uzbekistan is a truly unforgettable country. From the spice market in Samarkand to the desert fortress of Khiva via the caravanserai and trading domes of Bukhara, it was crammed with breathtaking architecture, bubbling with stories and legends and home to the most hospitable and friendly people. An intoxicating experience resulting in my story “On the Shoulders of Others” I hope to write many more.

It’s Book Festival Launch Day!

Today we launched our exciting new programme at a special event in Edinburgh Central Library.

Over two hundred journalists, publishers, authors and other special guests gathered in the beautiful Reference Library to hear our Festival Director Nick Barley, and Janet Smyth our Children & Education Programme Director reveal the tantalising details of this year’s line up.

Highlights to look forward to include:

• A host of international writing talent such as exiled Chinese Nobel Laureate, Gao Xingjian and American literary giant Robert Coover.

• Home-grown talent in the form of A L Kennedy, Alexander McCall Smith and Louise Welsh.

• A celebration of new writing with the Newton First Book Award, where the public get to select the winner.

• A world-first all-star read through of Alasdair Gray’s Fleck, featuring a stellar cast of authors including Ali Smith, Will Self and Alasdair himself.

• A strand of events for children specially curated by the new Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson.

• Non-fiction treats from Evan Davis, Sarah Brown and Jonathan Agnew.

• A hand-picked selection of the very best illustrators including Axel Scheffler, Shaun Tan, Emily Gravett, and this year’s Illustrator in Residence, Nick Sharratt.

• The return of our free, late-night literary shenanegins  - Unbound in the Spiegeltent.

You can download our brochure and browse events on our website. We hope you’ll love it as much as we do!

 

The reference library provided a fitting backdrop for the launch

Children and Education Programme Director Janet Smyth introduces the RBS Children’s Programme

 

Book Festival Director Nick Barley reveals the inspiration behind this year’s programme

 

Our beautiful brochure, hot off the press

 

The sound of world voices in New York

Our Programme Manager Roland Gulliver recently took a trip to the PEN World Voices Festival in New York. Here he reflects on the experience…

New York, New York - it’s so famous they named it twice, and it’s where I was very lucky to find myself for six days at the end of April to experience the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. As part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s continued international work, and the development of our Word Alliance, we worked with the PEN World Voices organisers to present Scottish authors at this most multinational of occasions!

The Festival runs for 7 days at the end of April and has been chaired by Salman Rushdie for the past 7 years, with 2011 being the first year for the new director, László Jakab Orsós. It presents an extraordinary programme of events with authors from over 40 countries at venues across Manhattan Island, taking in their various cultural partners such as Scandinavia House and Instituto Cervantes, and a range of New York’s iconic venues including the 92Y, the Bowery Poetry Club and Carnegie Hall. The festival brings together this wealth of international writers to discuss the key issues affecting the world and the world of writing today. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Arab Spring’ and WikiLeaks were high on this year’s agenda but other hot topics included Pakistan, China, Russia, the Middle East, libraries, prisons, publishing and translation. The programme’s unifying thread was that the writer is central to everything - whether that be the writer's role of documenting change in our world, or the persecuted writer representing the challenges of gaining free speech and free society around the globe.

Inside the Bowery Poetry Club

This was my first visit to New York since I was a student so I was hugely looking forward to visiting as a ‘grown up’, but having not been for so long meant that first impressions were overwhelming! New York, probably more so than any other city, already exists for us - we inhabit it through television, film, music, and books, and our imaginations are awash with cultural references. So to actually be in the city of yellow cabs and rattling subways, skyscrapers and steaming sidewalks, hotdog stands and diners was quite disconcerting. The first time I took the subway, out to Brooklyn where our friends Five Dials were launching their latest issue, my head pitched between the seminal 70s film, Warriors, and the Beasties Boys back catalogue. In between the events, as well as taking the subway, I did a lot of walking - Union Square, Washington Square, Central Park, Grand Central Station, Broadway, Park Avenue, Greenwich Village, the Empire State Building - just trying to absorb as much as possible. 

The Five Dials launch

The festival based itself in the remarkably, intimidatingly stylish Standard Hotel in the very cool Meatpacking District. The hotel itself is perched over The High Line, a raised subway line which has been converted into a park making a long narrow strip of green through the warehouses, and providing a unique perspective on the city; the locals have taken it to their hearts very quickly. The High Line played host to some of the intriguing smaller events in the programme - the Saturday afternoon book swap, the mobile library and the Karma Chain (think of a very long game of Chinese Whispers!).

The Standard Hotel also played host to the Edinburgh International Book Festival reception on the Tuesday evening where our invited guests were treated to a reading from Alan Bissett, including a short performance from The Moira Monologues!! Remarkably, Moira fae Falkirk fit right in! My personal highlight that evening was after our reception when Alan, Ali Bowden from the City of Literature and I joined Irvine Welsh in a local bar to watch his beloved Chicago White Sox beat the Yankees. It was one of those moments that you never expect to happen but when they do you are reminded of how magical your day job is! Irvine was taking part in several events throughout the week - he had appeared at the opening event on the Monday night and also did a reading later in the week at the Bowery Poetry Club where, amongst others, David Bezmozgis and Rahul Bhattacharya were reading; I knew about Rahul’s book but it was lovely to discover how well he reads.

The High Line

The final part of the Scottish contingent was John Burnside who took part in two of the most innovative events in the programme: The Poetry Safari which took place in an apartment block with the audience going from apartment to apartment to hear writers read; and Poetry: The Second Skin which featured a wonderful cast of poets reading their work while the iconic Laurie Anderson played improvised electronica in accompaniment. It was wonderful to see how the poetry and music responded to each other, especially how the poets naturally took up the rhythms of the music. The evening was completed with a guest appearance from Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons. Only in New York would someone like that just pop in to sing a couple of songs!

My time at PEN World Voices was encapsulated by two events, each at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of style and content, but both equally inspiring. The Best of European Fiction event hosted by Aleksandar Hemon featured authors from Slovenia, Moldova and Norway. All three read and talked eloquently about their work and the importance of literature in Europe no matter where you are. And most inspiringly, they told this to a packed audience!

The other event was the big Saturday night show being presented by The Moth and hosted by Salman Rushdie. The Moth appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival a couple of years ago so it was great to experience the show on home turf. The line up of storytellers included stellar names like Elif Shafak and Jonathan Franzen but the most moving story of the night was from Warren MacDonald as he told of his catastrophic climbing accident. It was also where I got my best celeb spot - Courtney Love sitting just a few seats away!

“Whenever I’m away from home I feel like a different person.”: An Interview with Rodge Glass

We recently nabbed contributing author Rodge Glass to ask him about his Elsewhere short story, After Drink You Can Turn Earth Up Side Down. Read on to hear his thoughts on travel, reading work aloud and his serendipitous adventures due to last spring’s volcano incident.

The Elsewhere stories had a specific theme - namely, to be about something unfamiliar or unknown. What did this idea mean to you, and how did that develop into your story?
Well, the Elsewhere theme turned out to be really lucky for me, as ‘Elsewhere’ could be a possible title for a whole collection of stories I’ve been working on for a while now, each dealing with loners or single people in different parts of the world.
I have one called ‘A Weekend of Freedom’ which was the beginning of this idea, a story based on a nightmare stag weekend in Sofia, Bulgaria, commissioned for the Homecoming year, and which was published in Gutter #2. (Gutter is a magazine of new Scottish creative writing. Find out more on the Gutter website).
At the time of that story I was really wanting to change my style. Loosen up a bit. Be unafraid. After that one I wrote several others, some commissioned, based in Belgrade, Manchester, Tunis, Edinburgh…I’m not sure but I think I’d like to work on the collection steadily over the next couple of years. There’s a powerful poem by Kapka Kassabova called ‘I Want to Be a Tourist’. If she’ll let me steal that title for my book, I’ll be happy.

Did you find a predetermined subject like Elsewhere was a helpful jumping off point or a limiting factor in developing your story?
I know some writers struggle with being given a particular subject but generally I have a few ideas knocking around at any given time, and I like a challenge. As I say, with this one, it was a great excuse to write on a subject I was really interested in exploring anyway.
Whenever I’m away from home I feel like a different person. You can’t avoid that there’s a whole world you can never know or understand out there. You’re forced to confront what you do not know. It’s overwhelming, but it makes me want to eat it up at the same time. Which is an odd feeling.

Your piece is set in a bar in Hong Kong. Is this based on any personal experience of the city?
Yes. I went to Hong Kong for the first time ever last year, in the April, shortly before I was asked to write this story. My Dad has lived out there for a good few years, he runs the family business from there, though he’s moved to China now. I’d never seen that part of the world and I was fascinated.
One night we went to a bar in Wan Chai with just myself, my brother, my Dad, and a cousin who lives out there. We don’t get a huge amount of time together so it was an important few days really. And it was great! But something about those bars set up for Western men to get all nostalgic and cruise for young vulnerable women from Hong Kong, or more likely Thailand or somewhere like that. It made me uneasy. And the Filipino band playing the covers of 60s and 70s Western classics, songs that used to represent rebellion but now represent a kind of comfort. I thought there was something in that. Apart from the bar and the band, the whole story is fictionalised. I’m a bit quiet. I tend to just watch, think too much, go away and write about stuff that might have happened but didn’t.

You've mentioned previously that you like to read unfinished work to audiences, for their feedback and reactions. Does this ever alter your work? Did it affect the final result of this story in any way?
Yeah, I love to do that. Because, as Alan Bissett says, “If it’s dead in your mouth then it’s dead on the page”. When I read out a story, I work out whether it’s alive. And if it is, how I might improve it.
As for this story, I did make all sorts of changes after doing readings over the Atlantic. It’s not so much about the audiences, although sometimes people do engage and give advice. But it’s mostly about reading something out then realising there’s a more succinct, or poetic, or satisfying way to say the same thing.

The Elsewhere stories are meant to be about something "not connected to your own home or your own people". Do you think, accidentally or deliberately, the stories we've collected (yours included) have anything to say about Scottishness or Britishness?
Mine is very much about Westerners abroad – although that Western thing is always fractured and mixed up. The escaping rich man in my story, dancing with the young Thai girl to Eric Clapton’s ‘Cocaine’, could be from Glasgow, or London, or Pittsburgh. The point is, he’s looking for Western comforts in the East.

And lastly, you did a surprise reading of this piece at Toronto's International Festival of Authors last year. How did that come about?
When I was in the middle of writing this story, I was invited to do a reading in Pittsburgh (my life isn’t always this rock ‘n’ roll), and on my way home I got rerouted to Toronto because of the Icelandic volcano. No one could get over the Atlantic, basically, and I had two weeks in Canada that I’m deeply grateful for. I love Toronto and had a great time there.
Someone heard about my story and asked me to cover for Andrea Levy, who was in England and couldn’t make it over for the same reason. It was amazing. Writers were covering for each other at festivals either side of the Atlantic. Which was also the reason I got invited to read at the Metropolis Bleu Festival in Montreal around the same time. I was still stuck, and Jason Donald (also part of the Elsewhere project, I believe) couldn’t get over. I was gutted for Jason but he really didn’t want to let them down. He generously recommended me, and I ended up reading my work in Canada. The only thing I had with me at the time was my copy of ‘After Drink…’, unfinished. Thankfully it went down really well and I managed to get it finished before I came home, much delayed by the volcano.

*****

Many thanks to Rodge for sparing the time to chat to us. We look forward to his collection of elsewherian treats when it’s finished!

Rodge spoke about After Drink… at the 2010 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Find out more in this video of his event with fellow Elsewhere contributors Jen Hadfield and Eleanor Thom.

Barry Hutchison on writing The Unclaimed Girl

Award-winning author Barry Hutchison recently took part in our Elsewhere new writing project. You can read his stunning Elsewhere piece, The Unclaimed Girl, on our website.
We’re delighted to welcome Barry as guest-blogger for the day. Read on to find out how he approached the Elsewhere brief, and brought The Unclaimed Girl to life…


Fittingly, I had just moved house when I got the call asking me to take part in the ‘Elsewhere’ project.

I’d relocated my family from the Highlands of Scotland to a town just outside Edinburgh, and was feeling a bit like a fish out of water. I knew no-one, had no idea where anything was, and I was starting to wonder if we’d made completely the wrong decision.

So, when I was asked to take part, I knew I could put at least some of that to use. I just wasn’t quite sure how.

I went through a number of ideas, trying to pick one that excited me. My son had just started a new school, and I saw a potential story there. A new kid, making friends, getting to know new teachers...

There was potential there, but it felt too small, somehow. The short story format lends itself well to smaller, more intimate tales, but I wanted a stronger concept. I was already nervous. My first book was only published in February 2010, and I was being asked to contribute to a collection featuring some major international writing talent. A story about the first day at a new school wasn’t going to cut it.

I needed something bigger.

What if it was a new school in a new country? That was bigger. Suddenly you’re not just looking at a new school building, you’re potentially looking at an entirely different culture.

But, no. It still felt too “normal”, and normal isn’t something I’ve ever been particularly interested in. I scrapped the whole thing and tried coming up with some new ideas. My INVISIBLE FIENDS series features some pretty full-on horror, so there was a possibility of doing something in that genre, but something about that starting a new school idea kept dragging me back to it.

So, what if... What if...?

What if the character wasn’t just starting a new school, but they were staring a new school in the afterlife? What if they didn’t just have to adjust to new classmates, but they had to adjust to the fact they were dead?

I felt a buzz of excitement. The idea was definitely “bigger”, and it was certainly less “normal” than the plain old first day at school idea. I knew then that I’d found my story. A girl starting a new school in the afterlife – what could be more Elsewhere than that?

But, during the course of writing the story, my mum was diagnosed with cancer. Her prognosis was grim, and suddenly my thoughts on the afterlife became less abstract and more concrete.

Without planning it, the story changed. It was no longer about a girl starting a new school in the afterlife, it was about how it would feel to suddenly find yourself there, with no idea where “there” actually was. It was about coming to terms with death, when the death in question was your own.

I’m happy to report that since I wrote the story, my mum’s health has improved dramatically, much to everyone’s surprise. It appears that, despite all expectations, she wasn’t ready to make the train journey Imelda Brown makes in the story. Imelda is tough and stubborn – a survivor. My mum, it seems, is even more so.

Overall, I’m happy with the way THE UNCLAIMED GIRL turned out. I enjoy stories that imply a life for the characters beyond the tale’s boundaries, and I’m 100% sure that Imelda has a whole after-lifetime of adventures ahead of her there in the City of the Dead. Perhaps, one day, I’ll check up and see how’s she’s doing. I suspect, like my mum, she’ll be doing just fine!