Feeling refreshed.

I wrote Sally’s House as somewhat of a sequel to Terrence Malick.

SH is set at a similar time, 2017, approaching a decade ago.

Am looking back often, working it all out; the novel I’m currently writing is for the most part set 1992-99.

I wanted to include in this intro one of the photos as described in SH, but couldn’t find them. I think they are on an old phone. Instead, here is an image pertaining to the concluding segment.

What else is there to say?

Ultimately one just has to write these things.

Enjoy!

SALLY’S HOUSE

I traced my finger across my brow, touched my nose, ran over the stubble on my jaw, looked up. David, a journalist I’d met on a few occasions, stood with Gareth, a sports broadcaster, and Gordon, a professional cyclist. They seemed, from a tunnel-visioned mid distance, to be in the midst of a calm, enjoyable conversation; David and Gordon—whose recent success had ballooned his profile beyond all recognition—listened serenely as Gareth monologued, swept his hands expressively, appeared to pause for effect at certain moments and flourish in others.

I watched David tap his fingers on a bottle of craft beer, smile, nod in time to Gareth’s beats. Connor once described David as serious about his career; not a pejorative judgement on Connor’s part, more an observation based on being in the same profession as David and having lived together intermittently after they graduated, equal top, from JOMEC. Monologue over, Gareth paused, laughed at his own punchline; David opened his mouth to talk, waited too long, smiled instead as Gareth began again.

Then, without looking, I knew. I turned away from David and his friends, smiled, held out my hand for a moment. We bypassed the shake and instead hugged, laughed, spoke over one another until…

Hello my friend, Morgan said.

Hello my friend, I replied.

Another embrace, a little more talk, none of which I can remember even vaguely. We ordered, moved with our drinks—two okay pilsners—towards a table in front of the tall, Victorian industrial windows that looked out onto Westgate Street.

We took our seats, raised glasses.

Out of the window behind Morgan, I saw David, Gareth, and Gordon walk past, grim faced in the rain. I felt a runaway energy as Morgan and I grinned momentarily then, each taking a long breath, began.

Given that we had barely spoken for years—our most recent conversation, brief, perfunctory, as Morgan waited at London Heathrow two, maybe three, years ago—it was strange, to me at least, that we would spend the first half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, discussing my work as a teacher in prison; a job I hadn’t worked for over a year, so old news for me, but for Morgan, a production sound mixer in the film industry, something that was wild, radically so.

Morgan wanted to know how I thought he would handle jail, a question that no one else ever asked about themselves but I, like Morgan, personally considered many times at length. I told Morgan he’d be fine, we both would be, albeit—and I kept this to myself—perhaps one more so than the other. But, truthfully, for survivors of boarding school this kind of environment— the hierarchies, time management, rudimentarily savage groupthink—was really pretty easy to navigate.

We continued, segued onto another shared fixation.

Based on the correct calmness and mentality, escape feels achievable, I said.

You read my mind, Morgan replied.

Calm observations over time, fitness skill sets, commitment to the bit, I continued. All the normal attributes.

Morgan considered, earnestly seemed to take notes for practical rather than singularly theoretical purposes. I laughed, felt the delirious thrill of settling into the moment.

Really? I said, simultaneously gauging Morgan’s seriousness as I wondered, already knowing the answer, whether it would be him who might get us caught in the event of a joint escape attempt. Morgan’s school rebellion tended to revolve around smoking, alcohol, causing haphazard trouble around the school campus and town. That it would habitually result in him being caught and his freedom being curtailed for periods of time was apparently a price worth paying. My rebel acts veered towards a finessed tormenting of teachers I felt hard done by, often stealing from them—stationary, money, whatever—and honing dumb insolence and malicious compliance to a fine art form. Our approaches, and perhaps our motivations, couldn’t have appeared more different. Morgan had his fun and took his licks. I did what I did, felt what I felt. What mattered most to me was getting through the week and being able to go home at weekends; home, or at least home with his mother, was rarely an option for Morgan, and he acted accordingly.

Drink finished, Morgan was ready for another. I looked at my pint glass, still over two thirds full, said sure, watched Morgan walk over to the busy bar, crane his neck a little, smile as he handed his credit card over a man’s head and into the barman’s upturned palm.

Morgan returned, placed two glasses down on the table. I touched send, put my phone away, and then in response to another prison question reiterated, not entirely patiently, that I left over a year ago, but continued to write anonymous articles for VICE. These weekly articles purported to gather prisoner responses to current affairs, but were in fact me generating three different stock standpoints: salt of the earth prison veteran, comic relief lunatic youth, and profoundly stereotype-defying urban guy. I wrote them slightly differently each time, often modulating but occasionally inventing prison slang for my own amusement on an escalating trajectory of absurdity. To be paid for such a thing was exquisite, a total civvy-shivvy glueflush, as one might say on A-wing.

Morgan, I sensed, found the VICE bit fairly amusing, but wanted more about my actual prison experience. I auto-piloted an anecdote, by this point nuanced, clippable, comfortably podcast worthy, of how I once fell asleep at my desk, hungover after my publisher’s Christmas party the night before, as a lifer—a bona fide murderer—edited the prison newspaper. I felt a degree of satisfaction, likely more than usual, as Morgan appeared visibly excited, gripped the table and leaned in while I recounted the verbatim of my panicked internal monologue as I gradually woke, relieved to see the prisoner engrossed and apparently oblivious as he fiddled with a Christmas Crossword template.

This man has never held a mobile phone, I said, possibly realising this for the first time, although just as likely forgetting having considered it previously.

Who did he kill? Morgan said.

I think… no, he didn’t say, I replied. The man has never experienced Starbucks. He told me he would like to, one day.

We were boys when he killed, Morgan said.

And now here we are, I said, a smile on my face, my mind blank.

I felt exhausted—a trifecta of parental fatigue, writing deadlines, career frustrations—and I didn’t give Morgan a chance to enquire any more about the lifer, or prison. Instead, I quickly asked about Morgan’s experience of working with ACTOR, of whom I was earnestly a fan despite him being desperately uncool at the time, on the set of MOVIE, a release I was interested in but held little hope for. Morgan’s response, as I recall it:

Location shoot. Middle of nowhere. Outside, nothing but snow. ACTOR getting a divorce, on edge, rampaging at night. Fifteen-hour days, headwork, violence in the air. ACTOR screaming for a helicopter to come for him. Johnny, or Archie, maybe Phil, shouts down to him: ACTOR, there is no copter.

Morgan paused, laughed a little, leaned in. Hands held out in front of him, an old scar on his palm appeared more prominent than I remembered.

I will believe that story, I thought. Any story is true if told well enough.

Seems oddly relatable, I deadpanned earnestly.

Laughing loudly and sincerely, a look came over Morgan’s face as if he was recalling something, processing, then, finally, thinking of something else altogether.

How did you get that? Morgan asked, zig-zagged his finger over his forehead, replicated the outline of the Harry Potter shaped scar that, while now faded, remained prominent enough above my right eyebrow.

Oh, I said, grinning. I was attacked by a strange, strange man.

Morgan got up from the table, smiled as he pointed me towards the bar, then turned up the stairs to the bathroom. What I wanted was to know more about Morgan’s life—to edit, then complete, the fragmented narrative I had constructed in the years since we last met.

Over the years, I would sometimes recall New Year’s Eve at Morgan’s house—Sally’s house—near enough twenty years ago. Sally and a schoolfriend of ours, Sienna, sitting together drinking Guinness from the can as Morgan lay unconscious upstairs in his bed, having been carried up by Shirl, his aunt, Mel, also his aunt, and maybe someone else, I can’t say for certain. By comparison to Morgan, I was fourteen and had consumed less than ten alcoholic drinks in my whole life up to that evening. To hide my lack of experience, and too scared to get drunk, I simulated regular drinking speed by opening cans, sipping slowly, and then taking a new can at the same time as other people, disposing of my three-quarters full can on the floor, behind a cupboard, or weirdly—maybe I was in fact drunk—on each corner of the grand piano in the entrance hall. As the evening dragged on, I began amusing myself by seeing how little of the can I could drink, ultimately working up to taking a single sip before abandoning it. Ultimately, I dotted over a dozen of these cans around Morgan’s house. I was, quite clearly, out of my mind.

Approaching midnight, Oh Well by Fleetwood Mac in the background, I listened to Sally talk animatedly as she described her joy at having surprised Morgan with a kilt and a Les Paul guitar that Christmas. Sally stepped into the film industry as fifteen-year-old working-class girl from the East End of London, did her time, rose up. Morgan was Sally’s only child, but she looked after the whole family, her sisters and their children living in her house in exchange for them looking after Morgan while she was away on set for weeks, sometimes months at a time. I felt in awe of Sally. Imperious, caustic, warm and gregarious, Sally was very different to the other parents at both Acorns and later Rowes College; far too tough to care, she relentlessly did her own thing and made sure to get it done. That evening, close to midnight, I could see too just how in awe Sienna was too. To this day, the sight of them drinking Guiness is richer, more textured, than ever. A seemingly unattainable analogue realness in today’s world.

I woke the next morning in a sparsely furnished spare room, cold and ready to go home. I changed back into my clothes from the night before, looked out of the window, watched Sally walk Morgan around the perimeter of the large central lawn, Morgan’s head buried in her shoulder, her arm draped over him, holding her son close.

Parental death was an unusually prominent factor, or so it seemed to us—certainly as observed by me—in our relationship. Morgan’s father committed suicide when Morgan was four; my mother narrowly, almost inexplicably, avoided death when I was nine; and my father passed away suddenly when I was ten. I recalled the day a ten-year-old Morgan explained how his father died, recalled asking my mother that evening why he hadn’t opened the car door, recalled her careful, measured response. In the aftermath of my father’s sudden death a few months later, the lack of choice in the matter—his, mine, anyone’s—shocked me to the core, drove me insane. Delete as applicable. One similarity existed though. Both mine and Morgan’s fathers were very good-looking men.

We should have spoken about our fathers, I thought. We could always do it tonight, all these years later, now fathers ourselves.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Morgan returning from the upstairs toilets. He sat, leant over towards me, placed both of his hands over mine; Morgan let go, turned and gently squeezed my hand shut as he arched back into the high-backed stool. I was about to ask him about Sally, but it could wait.

Upstairs, I entered the stall, sat on the toilet. I typed a message to Connor, a message I would not send: Emphatically delighted to have this privacy and quiet!

Looking up and over the top of the cubicle, I followed three tightly fitted wrought iron pipes around the curvature of the ceiling until they turned upwards into the rafters via a roughly hacked opening. The wide double windows directly outside my cubicle were slightly ajar, and I listened, tuned in to the rain as it intermittently flicked onto the inner sill.

Be very quiet and accurate, I thought. Did I ever see MOVIE? Did ACTOR get back together with his wife again? Well, whatever, you will ultimately have to leave this cubicle at some point.

Refreshed, precise, I stood. Then in a manner that even in real-time felt self-sabotagingly cautious, I opened the cubicle door to a comedically long, loud siren-creak.

Nonetheless, I glided serenely towards the row of Victorian washing basins, stood, pretended to wash my hands, saw in the reflection a man—the hair, the straight-backed stance, it was David—as he stood at one of the urinals, his peacoat dripping wet from the rain outside.

Will David reach the very top, I thought. David’s mum died, not his father. Who is David’s Morgan…

Excuse me, David, we’re live on air and I have questions for you, I whispered, a grin on my face as I pretended to shake water off my hands as I watched David exit.

I touched the air dryer, held my hands to the side of the hot air, walked out of the bathroom and back down the wide, twisting staircase to Morgan.

At the table, halfway through a pint and with a new one for me opposite, Morgan flicked his phone screen with the fingers of one hand. I caught a glimpse of the body of an email, a banking app screen, a photo of a teenage girl I knew from social media to be Morgan’s daughter.

Outside, the rain came down hard. The night locked in, as dark as it gets.

I rested my hand on Morgan’s free hand, pulled back, grinned. It felt like a nice time of the evening to me, maybe around nine thirty or ten, and I was happy to feel renewed coherence, the buzzed inarticulacy from the lager, for now at least, gone. Peak precision, or so it felt.

A woman, who I maybe recognised from Gallery Ten, or possibly as one of Laura’s friend Charlotte’s friends—I really wasn’t sure—stopped next to our table, asked if she could use our internet.

Badness, Megan said. I forgot my passwords. You two want a photo?

Morgan and I stood next to one another in front of a towering wooden carving that depicted haunted fishermen packed on a small boat, some sitting, some standing, all seemingly adrift. Morgan put his arm across my shoulder, we both looked at one another, smiled. I put my hand across Morgan’s shoulder and we turned to each other once more, smiled. We stared straight ahead, laser-focused, smiles all round.

I’ve taken about a hundred, Megan said, handed the phone back to Morgan, explained she was late for her train so couldn’t stay.

She reminded me of Tara, Morgan said.

Tara was Morgan’s ex and Nira’s mother. I met Tara once, maybe fifteen years prior, on a visit to see Morgan in Essex, where he lived at the time; he seemed happy, stoned, his heart pointing haphazardly in something like the right direction. Tara, however, had just about seen enough and would shortly move to Tokyo with Nira, never to return.

The Morgan opposite me, soon to be married and expecting a baby, asked questions about my daughters, looked at some photos, talked about his feelings of excitement for his son’s arrival. It was all very polite. The dreaded generic diversion. It wasn’t that neither one of us didn’t care about our collective children, current or impending. Rather there existed a tangible understanding that we were across from one another in this bar, on this evening, after all these years, for another reason altogether.

Back on track, we continued on a winding path of scattergun memories, coursing through our time at Acorns—a small, hippy-ish, yuppie-ish, private school on the island—to the years attending Rowes College, a Methodist and aggressively Anglocentric boarding school that I hated, but did relatively well at in comparison to Morgan, who, despite constantly being disciplined, failing most of his classes, and dropping out early, seemed to look upon with a hazily optimistic fondness.

At Acorns, where there were infinitely fewer rules, and even those were idiosyncratically administered, Morgan appeared less comfortable as I, oblivious to any pedagogical inconsistencies, believed I was accessing a hidden paradise as I arrived each morning.

I asked Morgan if he could remember Robin, the co-headteacher, losing it with him one morning, leaving the classroom mid-sentence, continuing to talk as he stomped out of the door in a style that even as an eight-year-old seemed both earnestly heartfelt and flagrantly performative—only to return half an hour later, apparently calmer for having walked Taran, one of the three school dogs, on a loop of the school grounds.

Morgan, he was sure, had no memory of this, which of course baffled me as I recalled it all frame for frame, full verbatim.

A farmer shot Taran, I said.

Taran? I don’t know… we’re vegan now, Morgan replied. My round.

Sure, I replied. Taran, the school dog.

Morgan handed me a new pilsner, explained that to raise the money for a deposit on an apartment, he was forced into a less selective approach to the work he took on that year. I wanted to know what kind of money was being alluded to, offered that in this productive year he might earn around ninety—a total guess, but one that seemed a reasonable possibility.

Morgan smiled, visibly recalibrated, said the figure was a little over three hundred and fifty. He added that in the final days, hours, moments of having to secure the deposit, he sold his 1984 Chiffon white Carrera.

After a brief pause and a laugh, Morgan continued. The mortgage now approved, with an unexpected surplus, he used the extra money—that day, and without consulting his wife—to buy a new ‘family friendly’ Porsche. I found this bizarre, so truly incomprehensible it was clearly pointless to even try and hide my bewilderment. I earned probably eleven thousand, maybe a little more, the previous year; I was doing things my way, as always, scrapping hard for the vision no matter how hard it got.

In this moment we both stared straight, locked in, attempted to figure out the total maniac sitting opposite. It felt like a family reunion.

Morgan picked up his phone, held it in landscape, took a photo of me. I thought I heard David’s voice pass behind as I continued to stare into the camera lens, pondered mine and Morgan’s mostly distant, occasionally fraught, relationship at Rowes. Two hurt guys doing things differently. Some sweet spots from time to time. We were more like cousins than friends, to the point it felt almost immaterial whether we even liked one another.

Morgan got up to go to the bathroom. Morgan returned from the bathroom. I got up to go to the bathroom. I returned from the bathroom.

I didn’t see Sally in the wedding photos, I said.

There was a pause, a moment that lingered, manifested. Then a smile, renewed focus, words I now cannot recall being said, but—suspecting I would want to remember—transcribed in a Notes file the following morning as the girls ate breakfast:

Even now, I don’t remember anything in order, only that it happened (Morgan says). In my head, I see myself gripping the 911’s wheel hard, taking this feral satisfaction in how hard I was pushing it. As if it was totally okay to be driving like that. Then, trying to block out thoughts of- (blank); then, coming up with ways they could have got it wrong, mistaken identity, or- (blank); then thinking nothing. It was the middle of the night, I’d been up for two days. Maybe I’d misheard or maybe even imagined, or- (blank). Then, two officers talking about mum, the son—me—how I seemed fine. That it was weird how fine I seemed. Their words. How okay he—I—seemed. Then I. I didn’t, um, what. I. I wasn’t believing what I was hearing, and then what I was seeing, and then what I- (blank) (blank) (blank)-

Morgan stopped talking, waited for me to speak.

This was five years ago? I said, a guess based on the name of the director who gave Morgan permission to leave the set so abruptly.

A little over, Morgan replied. I came here to arrange her gravestone. I’ve never been able to work out what to put on it. And now I have, none of the engravers will do it.

You should be able to, I said. I…

I think I should, Morgan said. She was my mother. She knew it was her time to check out. Why can’t I honour that?

The pain across Morgan’s face appeared all too real to me as he continued, circled his grievance over the gravestone dedication, a nakedly frustrated imprecision in his delivery, one that I recognised, and loathed, from my own experiences at this stage of intoxication.

It wasn’t only Morgan. We both felt compelled to talk. Focussed, pushing onwards with my desire to change the subject, I told Morgan that my life had been through some ups, downs, ups again, that I was becoming reconciled to the bumpy road, taking everything as it came… and other dumb platitudes I cannot remember.

Morgan listened, distracted and entirely justified in wanting to keep the focus on him, and Sally’s gravestone specifically. We saw the world differently. Some similarities, too many differences. Real friends don’t need to maintain the pretence. To feel the ministry of presence was all we needed. I knew, however, where this conversation would go if it continued much longer. Frankly, I couldn’t face it.

____________, Morgan said, pushed his fist across the table, rubbed his hand over his beard, plucked a stray white.

I leant to the side, opened my jacket slightly, briefly felt around for my keys in the deep inner pocket.

Mum was going to move in with us, Morgan said. We were going to get a bigger place, combine our money. Do you remember our house on the island?

Bolt upright, I touched my forehead, ran my finger down the bridge of my nose. I faced Morgan, the window behind him rattling with hard rain, a deluge in the night; the depth of the blackness brought to mind a wintery kindergarten story time at Acorns, us sitting on the floor in front of a log fire, half asleep under coarse patchwork blankets, hot water bottles at our feet in the shape of sleeping wolfhounds.

I remember your house, if not perfectly, a definite sense of it, I said. I feel certain there were rooms I didn’t go into. I don’t think I have any memory of your room, beyond maybe a poster of Motley Crüe, but I could be imagining that; I think I can remember your bathroom, or the kids’ bathroom as it might have been—I specifically recall seeing blood on the… pink… basin once; I recall the downstairs, but even then I think I’m missing perhaps half, the left hand side looking from the outside; I think, correct me if I’m wrong on any of—

How do you remember so much? Morgan asked.

How do you not remember everything? I replied.

Your house was down a hill, near the water, Dyland said.

Yes, correct. Down a hill, near water.

I checked the time on my phone, confirmed it on my watch, didn’t need to say a word. I watched Morgan place his keys next to his phone, turn his phone over, touch it, turn it face down again and—finally—appear somewhat irritated, somewhat disappointed.

Outside, the heavy air lifted by the rain, we hugged, said goodbye. It felt awkwardly mechanical, emotionless. But maybe that’s just how it seemed at the time, the paranoia of short-circuited senses, feeling radically imprecise, exhausted again. All I wanted was to go home and fall asleep before two thirty.

This is where we were, and where we would remain. It was fine.

Walking away, I turned and saw Morgan look at his phone, return inside—but not before he looked back in my direction, raised his hand, said something I couldn’t make out, then smiled in a way I could only describe as his.

Halfway down Cathedral Road, it was still possible, at least in my mind, that I could be asleep by half two. I took my phone out of my pocket, began to type, stopped, began to type again: It was time to check out.

**

Somewhere beyond the Croatian border, finally now in Serbia, I walked down the train carriage’s plushly carpeted corridor. Connor, maybe four steps behind me, talked to himself, recorded notes for the purpose of the documentary. We stopped so Connor could film the blackness on the other side of the window, then film me looking out at the blackness.

I’ll probably use about ninety seconds of everything I’ve got so far, Connor said, grinned, filmed his reflection in the wide, double-height window.

Where are we, do you know? I asked.

No, Connor replied, his iPhone at waist height, titled upwards towards me. Say more about the body of the school dog, the one that got shot. Taran.

I turned away from the window, walked down the corridor towards the restaurant where, once inside, I headed to the bar, ordered two beers and a carton of Croatian Pringles.

I sat next to Connor in a window booth, slid a bottle over to him. We were due to arrive in Belgrade in two, maybe two and a half, hours, the conclusion of a twenty-five-hour journey all told.

Synchronized, we looked around the carriage: a man, dressed somewhat in the style of Steve Jobs, looked at Excel on a laptop, absent-mindedly ate from a plate of long, thin sausages; a man with long black hair sipped a tall glass of beer, took a covert interest in our presence; a father ate a meal of mixed meats, fries, and dead salad along with his son, a young boy of perhaps ten who smiled wildly in between mouthfuls, delighted to be in the presence of the only idol he would ever need in a moment he would never expect to end.

Sally killed herself, I said.

Wait, I’ll, Connor said, turned his iPhone away from me.

No, keep recording, I said, checked my watch. When was the last time I wasn’t in a hurry?

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed Sally’s House.

I’m still working on some interviews.

The Shards TV adaptation is increasingly a real miss for me, and I haven’t got to the now notorious ep5 yet.

Ah well ah well.

See you legends in the next one!

Rereading the segment later that evening, and again the following morning, I began to edit, consider that it might go back in the novel. I really don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.

Either way, somehow, the edited version feels too up in the air to publish and I’m now resistant to the original. Perhaps I should have just posted it as I found it. Too late, the moment’s gone!

I have a few of these deleted scenes, and a couple of other ideas for set piece chapters. In my head there is a different version on the novel, one that is probably 25-30% longer. It’s always possible that this lengthier version will be the one published. I’m open to working with an editor on this.

There have been some interesting developments of late with both NCLB and Hello Friend We Missed You. I will, I hope, be able to say more later.

Anyway, here we have another excerpt from No Child Left Behind...

CHAPTER 9

ROBERT

The carpark more a rough indentation at the edge of the dunes, rolled, pressed into a length of compacted gravel, Robert pulls up, drifts. Engine off, he casts his eyes over the parked Californias, Defenders, BMW iXs.

Robert picks his phone up from the drink holder, looks to see if—of course—the emailer has emailed.

Tom and Alice say hi X

Beti recording Tom and Alice. Auteur Rat! X

Do you want some test samples of Jamie’s new turmeric balls? X (Free!) X

Claire asked if you have a Tesla now??? X

I mean Clare X

Robert scrolls over the emails, doesn’t delete, smiles. Emma’s email bit—which wasn’t a bit, not consciously so, certainly not to begin with—would be a perfect quirk for one of The Grudge Match’s protagonists; possibly the Tetherton patriarch, or perhaps the ‘Robert character’; it feels too endearing to attribute to one of the children, too specific to Emma to waste on a member of the ensemble. Robert thinks, smiles, considers it too sacred to give to anyone other than a de facto ‘Emma character’.

“Hmmm,” Robert says, considers how he could incorporate Emma into The Grudge Match, tunes into Radio 3 just as the car radio switches itself off; he touches the console button to make the radio come back on, only for it to turn itself off moments later.

Goodbye again Radio 3-

Outside, a crosswind blows; a pair of women step out of a Jaguar E-Pace—late sixties, possibly early seventies, equipped with Raab jackets, metal walking poles, smartly cut shape-retaining rose-silver hair.

“Okay,” Robert says.

Resilient Finisterre Senior Singles In Your Area-

Lose resilient, Finisterre, or senior-

Lose it all-

Robert turns, sees Emma’s California approach, turn off from the road, pull up next to him: Beti up front in the passenger seat, cousins Tom and Alice sitting in the rear, both solemn as ever.

Emma talks, smiles. The cousins smile, laugh. Robert watches Emma unbuckle her belt, turn back to face Tom and Alice once again—more talk, more smile, the cousins’ downbeat aura unable to resist their gorgeous aunt.

Unreal-

“Dad!” Beti shouts. Window down, she points her cracked iPhone in Robert’s direction. “Say something!”

“The way of the dunes. It’s the way of the dunes,” Robert says, repeats himself as Beti mouths again. “Hello Tom. Hello Alice.”

Tom and Alice mumble hi, step out of the California, both significantly taller since Robert last saw them, nearly three years ago; Tom, especially, has filled out into a leaner, more adult physique—shoulders, arms looking defined, muscular underneath a white Under Armour t-shirt; Alice has cut her hair short, the signature unruly blonde mop replaced with a symmetrical, triangular bob.

“Hi guys,” Robert says.

“Good thanks,” Alice says, looks down, self-consciously fiddles with her beaded tribal choker.

“Good thanks,” Tom says, smiles, takes a phone out of his Under Armour bottoms, immediately puts it back in again without looking at the screen.

“Incredible,” Beti laughs, iPhone in landscape as she slowly moves it across the familial horizon.

“Slower, Bets,” Emma says, leans over, places her hands on Beti’s shoulders, guides the movement. Emma pulls back, hand on jutted hip as her hair whips back, forth, all around in the wind. “Come on! Go! Run!”

Beti puts the phone in her back pocket—her, Tom, Alice run ahead, quickly disappear into the tall reeds that precede the dunes.

“‘Good thanks!’” Robert says.

“I know,” Emma says, teeth brilliant white, Ray-Bans enormous for her face.

“Boarding school has really brought them out of their,” Robert says.

“Don’t,” Emma says, laughs, repeats in italics. “It doesn’t seem fair to compare them with Beti and Cal. But. No. You know. Come on. We know. Okay. You didn’t say if you wanted those turmeric balls?”

Robert looks over towards the dunes—a sandy peaked terrain across the immediate skyline—the children’s voices somewhere in the distance. He considers how to respond to Emma, ponders Jamie’s turmeric balls, feels himself clam up, freeze to the spot.

“Okay, no. Good. It was just an idea,” Emma says. “When was the last time you saw the cousins?”

“I don’t know. We were still.”

“We still are… And you’re still their uncle, for God’s sake,” Emma says. “I brought the turmeric with me just in case. Jamie has a factory now.”

“No, I know he does,” Robert says. “They have never viewed me as their uncle. You beat me in daily steps yesterday.”

“They adored you,” Emma says. “Did I?”

“Okay,” Robert says. “Yes, you did.”

“They still do adore you,” Emma says. “You’re the cool uncle. I mean. Come on. Listen. I was thinking about the tweet.”

“The juicy, playful tweet?” Robert smiles, laughs.

“It’s not too late. It might not be. If,” Emma says. “What if. Rob. It’s probably not too. Come on.”

Robert shrugs, attempts to fake-yawn, botches it.

“Right. Okay. Brilliant,” Emma says. “I’m stuck on the Terence doc. Beti sat in with me in the studio and… fuck, she’s better than me already for God’s sake. It’s ridiculous.”

“We have a very talented daughter.”

“We have very talented children.”

“Is acting a talent though? In the same way, I mean,” Robert says. “I saw Penny in Waitrose. She pretended she didn’t see me… stiff neck, stare straight ahead, concentration face. I mean. Come on. I’m not complaining. But.”

“No. Again? The dreaded Penny. Consider yourself lucky. And yes, I think it is,” Emma says. “I think most people would say acting is a talent, wouldn’t they?”

“In the same way as an author or filmmaker is?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Emma says, smiles, a despairing shake of her head. “I do think people would say that. Absolutely. Penny though. God. Just leave me alone, you absolute dick.”

Robert leans back against the fifteen-year-old pumpkin-orange Micra he inherited from his mother, stares directly into the sun. Emma—cut-off denim jeans shorts, oatmeal coloured hoodie—reaches into the California, pulls out a pink bodyboard, hands it to Robert, takes out a red bodyboard. Bodyboards under arm, the pair of them walk—barefoot, close—across the gravel, towards the tall grass.

“It’s good that you and Beti are messaging,” Emma says, smiles, hamstrings: stretching, quads: flexing, as she walks up the steep opening which leads into the mile of dunes. “I keep meaning to ask you something. Doesn’t matter. I’ve forgotten again. I’m forgetting everything at the moment. Constantly.”

“Of course we message,” Robert replies. “Why would you think we wouldn’t?”

“You never reply to my messages,” Emma says.

“Your emails?”

“Well, fine. Okay”’ Emma answers. “You’re busy with The Grudge Match. That’s good. Don’t reply. Get it done. How is it coming along? Are you nearly.”

Robert reaches the top of the incline, shouts over towards Beti, the cousins. The three of them run to him, take the bodyboards, charge down the other side of the incline, ascend straight into the large dune opposite.

“We tried to buy that house,” Robert says, points over towards the pale blue house across on the other side of the inlet. “Did you. Um. Have you.”

“The email to Cal’s lawyer? Yes, I did,” Emma says, places her arm around Robert’s shoulder, leans her head into his neck. “You need to. If you haven’t. We can’t protect him forever. It’s his money.”

“I have not,” Robert says, watches Beti, Alice race down the dune on a bodyboard each—Beti wipes out instantaneously, Alice two thirds of the way down. “I don’t want him wasting his money. You know how terrible we are with money. Come on. We are. We are. You know it. It’s not even on purpose. We’re frugal people. We really are. We’re just. I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right, does it—how we never have any money. Come on. Tom, try it standing!”

Tom shouts back okay; Emma and Robert watch as he powers up the dune, bodyboard under arm, takes three steps back at the top, holds the board in front of his chest, slightly to the side.

“I can’t seem to get anywhere at the moment with romance,” Robert says, arm around Emma’s waist. “I think. No. It feels like a betrayal to the real work to make an effort. I know that sounds insane. It probably is. No. I’m standing on principle. I shouldn’t have to try, not with this. Not like with the real writing. I don’t know. If I could just bring myself to write to market properly, the not trying on the writing quality wouldn’t matter so much. It’s a madness I don’t. Or can’t. Whatever.”

“Your recent book covers are. Well. They’re deranged,” Emma says, snorts, smiles. “Covers are important. We know this. And they’ve not been great. Since. It’s been a while. You know. They’ve been different since the tweet.”

“Hmmm. The innocent tweet,” Robert laughs. “I mean, they’re not that bad. Come on. The covers stand out… in a good way. Like that tweet. The tweet wasn’t bad. Come on. We agreed it wasn’t bad. Everyone else was the problem. Anyway. Listen. Do you have an old laptop I can buy?”

“Buy?” Emma replies. ‘Don’t be a dummy. What happened to yours?’

“Thank you. Nothing. It’s good.”

“Go, Tom!” Emma shouts, moves her hand around Robert’s waist. “He’s nervous.”

“He is. Tom’s always been like that… with a dad like Edward. Come on,” Robert says. “Tom! Send it!”

Robert and Emma—Beti and Alice perched like vultures high on the dune’s side bank—cheer Tom as he rocks back on his heels, long legs tangle momentarily, bursts off the edge of the dune board under foot.

“Well done, Tom!” Emma says, squeezes tightly against Robert, pushes her head up into his armpit to make space. “He loves it.”

“Let’s go, Tom!’ Robert shouts, the devoted uncle, pleased with himself for making the effort, especially in front of Emma. “He’s a good kid.”

Tom rides the dune, a rapid acceleration as he approaches half-way, his lean frame compact, angular, one hand directed out behind him, the other wrapped by the velcro foot clasp. The cousin lets out a self-conscious, earnestly euphoric whoop as he attempts a small turn—makes it, makes it, doesn’t—lets out a piercingly fearful whelp as he loses control over an exposed clump of reed, his elongated mass of limbs and surfer-lite curtains thrust forward off the board, drive headfirst into the sand.

Emma sprints away from Robert, tumbles into a forward roll down the inner face of the dune towards a prone, deathly still Tom. Robert looks towards Beti and Alice—atop the dune, the acid lilt of Alice’s languorous cackle the perfect soundtrack to Beti’s iPhone footage.

“Can you hear me?” Emma shouts, grips, shakes Tom’s shoulder. “Rob, get over here!”

Robert walks down the dune at a self-consciously leisurely pace. He attempts to move quicker as the panic in Emma’s voice rises but finds himself moving slower, limbs stiff, conscious of every grain of sand underfoot.

Being filmed-

Hahaha Edward-

“Tom!” Emma says, shakes Tom’s shoulder once more, a relieved look on her face as he robotically sits upright as the sound of Alice’s laughter continues to echo around the dune.

“Come on mate, let’s have a look,” Robert says, leans in towards Tom, offers a hand of comfort.

“Get off!” Tom says, backhands Robert’s arm away, eyes red and tearful. “This is your fault. Fuck off… Robert.”

Robert looks at Emma.

Emma shakes her head at Robert, looks at Tom.

“No? Okay. I get it. No problems,” Robert says. “It’s just the way of the dunes, Tom. Fuck it, bro. Don’t lash out at me. I’m not your Dad. He’s wherever he is. Not here. Thank God.”

Robert turns, walks in the direction of the car park; the louder Emma and Beti shout after him, the faster he walks, jogs, runs, builds to an agonizing barefoot sprint across the gravel car park.

Inside his car, Robert turns the keys, reverses, slams the brake; he opens the glove compartment, breathes, pulls out a can of Waitrose G&T; feet down hard—accelerator, brake, simultaneously floored—Robert opens the can, feels dizzy, helpless with anger.

Revving myself to happiness-

Drinking myself to-

Robert elbows the driver’s side door fully open, pours the G&T onto the gravelled floor, watches a uranium-blue Tesla approach, pass in silence. Empty can in hand, Robert clenches his jaw, unclenches, focuses on his breathing as the car radio turns itself on to the sound of the presenter in full flow:

Johannes Brahms, and so began the years of fame.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this excerpt.

I’m optimistic to have a couple of interviews ready to go shortly.

See you legends in the next one!

Tonally and stylistically, the two books are very different.

No Child Left Behind is probably twice as long and far more of a comedy, although I think there are moments of real emotional pathos there too; well there were for me when I was writing it haha.

It is a novel about love, disruption, and disgust.

Cementing its place in the ROR literary cannon, Menai Waitrose also makes an appearance during this novel, but not in this excerpt.

CHAPTER 28

EMMA

Blinded momentarily by the cold sun, surrounded by generic, anticipatory chatter, Emma looks to the sky, paddleboard under arm; barefoot in a three-quarter length wetsuit, she watches Jamie tower over Natalie, one half of the SUP instructor team, makes out the word turmeric repeated several times, along with inflammation gamechanger, and many, many benefits. Emma has heard it all before, yet can’t recall a single one of the many, many benefits of turmeric beyond inflammation control.

“God, he’s handsome,” Penny says, sending a shiver down Emma’s spine, suddenly in earshot as she sidles up behind her. “Isn’t he?”

Emma continues to stare ahead—beyond Jamie, out towards the mainland, her house looks every brick the breathtakingly crippling money pit.

“Emma,” Penny says. “Emma.”

“What,” Emma snaps, turns, gasps at the sight of Penny, head to toe in wetsuit, her small face framed menacingly inside a neoprene balaclava. “Jesus.”

“I know, it’s bloody freezing!” Penny says. “I don’t know how you’re barefoot. Must have been those rebel hippy years at Bedales. Well. Listen. Jamie. What’s he like at home? Who is the man behind the rugby balls?”

God-

End this-

Penny continues to talk—Emma cannot hear a word. Among the families and tourists, she spots the dreaded Patrick’s two daughters in law, Clara and Olivia; her past interactions with them limited to passing hellos outside the old house, Emma grits her teeth, nods in their direction as eye contact is made, held, averted.

The surround sound babble reaches a crescendo as Natalie breaks away from Jamie, then, along with her partner Liam, quietens the crowd with a slap of her paddle on an oversized metallic buoy. The toll lingers in the air, reverberates inside Emma’s head, stiffens her shoulders.

“Thank you for coming,” Penny says, her voice low, reverential. “I know this isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse. But a deal’s a deal!”

Emma smiles, puts her arm around Penny, swivels the pair of them away from Clara and Olivia’s line of sight.

“I’m actually looking forward to this,” Emma says. “And thank you for filming me climb. I’ve watched it back. It’s impressive. I mean. Come on. I’m impressive. I flew up that wall—we’ll edit out the weird bit at the top. Paddleboarding will be fucking easy in comparison. Judging by everyone else here, it has to be.”

“Oh, yeah. No. Don’t mention it,” Penny whispers. “You looked great on the wall. Totally locked in.”

Emma turns, looks up towards the road, watches an amaranthine-purple Defender cruise past, followed by another Defender, ecru-cream.

“Dogshit,” Emma says.

“Not too keen on them myself. All a bit Chesire Life,” Penny says, hand on Emma’s shoulder. “By the way, I was meaning to ask.”

“Yes, Penny?”

“Did you take the California in to get the paint and body quote?”

Penny’s nephew is an apprentice at a nearby car bodyshop and Penny has been pestering Emma to take her California in for him to work on, caveated with a humiliatingly unsubtle reassurance of a family and friends’ discount.

Emma folds her arms across her chest.

The idea of spending hundreds, probably thousands, of pounds on fixing the bodywork seemed as absurd as anything Emma could possibly comprehend when she can barely afford to turn the heating on, let alone pay to tidy up the California.

“Not yet, maybe next week,” Emma says.

“How’s Siân?” Penny asks. “I thought I saw her in Waitrose.”

“Good thanks,” Emma says, considers how, a recent downturn aside, her mother could still be good thanks for three more years, maybe even five. Given how far she’s lasted beyond the diagnosis, it seems entirely possible to Emma that her mother will outlive her—a notion so conceivable it’s hard to imagine a world where Siân isn’t in fact good thanks. “Hmm,” Emma says. On the other hand, Siân no longer being good thanks would mean no more credit card debt, heating on, perhaps even a full California bodywork renewal. “She’s been better. But you know Siân.”

“Absolute legend,” Penny says, nods reverently in a manner that doesn’t irritate Emma as much as it might. “Anglesey’s original girl boss.”

Emma looks at Penny in a disorientedly non-disgusted, almost affectionate bewilderment, entirely unable to think of a response—fortunately the silence is filled as Natalie and Liam step forward, announce themselves officially.

“It’s great to see yourselves here today,” Liam says, Turkeymaxxed, unmistakable Cheshire drawl, his Anglesey Paddleboard branded t-shirt obnoxiously, unflatteringly tight in a way that sends a shiver of contempt through Emma. “Paddleboards, prosecco, island life. In that order!”

“By the way,” Penny whispers, eyes lit, ominous glee in her voice. “What was Rob thinking? You know… going back on Twitter. After. You know. Last time. That dreadful place. You know… we were shocked. We really were shocked. Even by Rob’s standards, what he wrote was…”

Emma feels a prickling sensation over her neck. Penny wants the reaction, the intel, the full rundown—better still, Penny wants to gauge if Emma even knows what she’s talking about, which she does not.

“It’s for the novel,” Emma says, ears red, eyes straight ahead. “Come on, Pen. You know that.”

Emma senses Penny deflate, centres herself, blocks out all thought of what Robert may have said or done.

“Neil Reacher’s here,” Penny says, buoyancy restored. “Look, he’s just arrived. He’s brought his own board.”

“Of course he has,” Emma says. “Keep him away from me. Penny. Keep Neil away from me. Can you do that?”

“I can—and I will!” Penny says, hushes herself, leans her head on Emma’s shoulder.

Emma stares straight ahead, shoulders stiff, sighs as Liam and Natalie continue to banter back and forth uselessly, word after word plopping out of their mouths onto the slipway’s two-hundred-year-old crushed slate.

“We loved it here so much, we just stayed and stayed and stayed,” Natalie says, looks up at Liam, smiles. “Who needs fancy clothes and bright lights when you’ve got Anglesey? And stand up bloody paddleboard!”

Liam and Natalie clap, continue to clap, burst into laughter as, finally, almost everyone else claps along with them.

“I’m not sure about these two,” Penny whispers in Emma’s ear.

“Well stop clapping then,” Emma says, arms folded, as she watches Jamie record himself clap against his chest. “For God’s sake. I just want to get out onto the water.”

A few moments of Liam and Natalie delivering instructions later—it could be half an hour for all Emma knows—the paddleboarders walk down the slipway, boards under arm, eager smiles and shrill gasps as the water laps onto them.

Emma stops short of the launch point, stands ankle-high in the water, watches Penny slowly, infuriatingly cautiously, work herself into a standing position.

“Yes!” Penny says, upright, paddle in both hands, her gaze trained towards Clara and Olivia. “Well done, Clara!”

Emma braces herself, flexes her quads and her buttocks, places her hands on her hips, stares.

How does she-

Of course she does-

“Well done, Olivia!” Penny says. “Go on, Clara! Come on, Emma!”

As Penny, Clara, and Olivia move into a triumvirate formation, Emma wonders how long it will take for Clara and Olivia to reject Penny to the point that even she can see it—if such a point actually exists. Penny had her time as top dog twenty-five years ago, but present-day Penny is something else altogether—meekly pushy, limitlessly fuelled by a brainless, relentless need to insert herself in people’s lives. But perhaps there might be worse things in the world than having a Penny around, Emma considers, as she watches Olivia turn, roll her eyes at Penny’s wittering.

“Come on, let’s get in,” a voice from behind Emma says.

“Good thanks,” Emma says, her brain tuned to Jamie’s flattened cadence. “I’ll catch you up.”

The sisters in law exchange subtle glances of derision, glacially traverse across the water with Penny alongside them, oblivious. Emma watches Penny talk, Clara flinch, Olivia turn, smirk.

Hapless Penny-

You just get used to it Penny-

The enemy of my Penny is my Penemy-

“Okay,” Jamie says, his hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Can I talk to you later?”

Emma nods. Laser-focused, she pushes her paddleboard out, folds herself over the board, stands tall, sets a course for Clara, Olivia.

As she navigates closer, Emma sees every flinch, twitch, contemptuous smile—how Penny can be so wilfully oblivious through this is incomprehensible. It doesn’t matter. Emma doesn’t care what Penny thinks or how she copes. Clara and Olivia are the dreaded daughters in law of the dreaded Patrick, their familial presence on the island having brought nothing but anguish to Robert—and by default to her too.

“Invader scum,” Emma says, deftly takes control, finds her rhythm, sets a course.

Emma recalls how an off-the-cuff comment from Julian, Patrick’s son, an implication made that he and Clara would buy Gail’s house when it came on the market. This was enough to plunge Robert into a tailspin that not only derailed the plan to sell the house but plunged him and Emma into deeper financial hardship at just the moment where it appeared they would finally be on stable ground.

The comment in question (it was a threat—Robert) was typical of the kind of empty bluster that Julian was prone to. Robert knew this to be the most likely scenario but couldn’t let go of the idea to such an all-encompassing extent that it infuriated Emma beyond even her deepest comprehension of Robert’s eccentricities.

Somehow, it was all made worse by the fact that Robert’s anger was only ever aimed at Julian and George, never at Clara or Olivia, who Robert found to be likeable buffoons—an assessment that Emma felt directly analogous to meaning he fancied them.

Emma watches Clara squat, hold, spring back—a stupid, pointless manoeuvre. Clara repeats the sequence, laughs grotesquely loudly, twirls her paddle from one hand to the other.

Emma’s senses heighten, a blackness descends.

“Penny, move,” Emma says, cuts through the water effortlessly, quickly, oblivious to the other paddleboarders as they fall by the wayside. “Move, Penny.”

“Yes, well done, Emma!” Penny says, turns, sees Emma on a direct course to hit her. “Oh God, I think you’re going to. No. Yes. Got it.”

Penny leaps off her paddleboard, crashes into the water as Emma barges past, moves closer to Clara and Olivia.

“Emma,” Clara says—confused, panic stricken—as Emma scythes through the water towards her. “Great to see you.”

“Good thanks, Klarna,” Emma says.

“Clara,” Clara says.

“Your name is Klarna,” Emma says, slashes her paddle across her body as the board’s momentum brings her closer to striking range. “Now get in.”

“Get in what?” Clara asks.

“Get in the fucking water,” Emma says, slashes the paddle from left to right, back again.

“You’re a problem,” Clara says—a meek last stand as she steps off the paddleboard, disappears under the water, resurfaces a few feet away. “Just jump in Livvo. She’s not kidding.”

Emma looks left, fixes her glare on Olivia; humourless, aggressively normie, married to Patrick’s lesser son, Olivia is the rounder, lesser daughter-in-law. Emma points her paddle towards the water, anticipates nothing but immediate capitulation.

“Come on then,” Olivia says, shakes her head, paddle in both hands like a tennis racquet. “Do it. Hit me, leggings-bitch.”

Emma grins, shrugs her shoulders, paddles to within range of Olivia.

She’s going to get it, she’ll feel everything.

No mercy. Only God forgives.

“Go for the calves,” Penny says as she bobs up at the side of Emma’s paddleboard, a curious, insistent seal. “Kill the calves.”

Penny continues to talk; Emma can’t hear a word, all she can envision is Olivia’s fat head detached from her neck via a paddle right-cross.

A stiff jab to the chest breaks Emma out of her vision, forces a positional reset as opposing paddleboards rub up against one another, Olivia set, primed for another shot.

“You get in the water,” Olivia spits. Her bottom lip trembles as she makes eye contact with Emma; Olivia’s single element-of-surprise-kill-shot gone, it’s game over as far as Emma is concerned.

The paddleboards brush up against one another once more, Emma sinks into her heels, unleashes a flurry of swats across Olivia’s arms, legs, back up towards her carmine-red helmet where she combos a volley of hits, each one rocking Olivia’s head back, forth, side to side.

Emma alternates between head shots, body shots, then, much to Penny’s delight, cripplingly painful swats to the calves.

“Great shot!” Neil shouts, paddles closer. “Winner stays on?”

“Fuck off, Squeal,” Emma says, swishes her paddle, lands an identikit shot on Olivia’s other calf.

Nothing matters any more.

No problems.

Everything is fine: no debt, no Robert, no verbatim, no Siân, no Finisterre, no messages, soon to be no more dreaded Olivia and Clara; violence is the answer sometimes, maybe even all times, Emma feels sure of it.

A final swat to her arm forces Olivia to drop her paddle, sink to her knees, topple into the water. Emma unclips her helmet, tosses it into the distance—she squeezes her glutes, quads, poses side on, fixes her most endearing, effervescent smile.

“Winners stay on, losers fuck off,” Emma says, looks across the strait towards her house, wonders how quickly she could paddleboard there. “Come on, Pen. Let’s go.”

Emma turns, finds Penny and Jamie aghast as their paddleboards bob in the water; further back, Emma sees Natalie and Liam start to paddle—thrashing clumsily, both quite unbecoming—in her direction.

“I. We can’t. I.” Penny says.

“My house,” Emma says. “Fuck it. Let’s go, Pen!”

“The deposit,” Penny says. “I paid the. We’ll lose the.”

“Suit yourself, drip,” Emma says, dunks her paddle into the water, begins what she is sure will be a straightforward traverse across the breadth of the strait. The incoming sleet to her left, twin Mastercraft to her right won’t stop Emma—nor will the painful throb in her breasts from Olivia’s one successful paddle strike.

Emma tunes out the sound of Liam and Natalie’s whining shouts for her to turn back—gone too is the increasingly close roar of the powerboats, Jamie’s monotone pleas for sanity, Neil’s running commentary, Penny’s deposit blather.

All Emma can hear is the water, the wind, the sound of Siân’s voice from her childhood when she would wrap Emma in a blanket after a bath, stroke her nose, sing her to sleep.

Get home-

Call Mum-

Doc edits-

“Light work,” Emma says, the first wrap of sleet cuffing her cheek. “Light work for the leggings-bitch.”

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this excerpt

See you legends in the next one!

Iceman, Drake’s new album, and the best of the three he released simultaneously last month, has been in my regular rotation during training, specifically the run of tracks 2-5. It might even be my favourite album of his, all considered.

It’s true that Drake can come over as feeling perpetually hurt or up against problems of his own making. Some find it tiresome or off-putting. For me, Drake is at his best in this mode.

Dare I say, this is him at his most relatable.

Not everyone has enjoyed my yet to be published new novel. L couldn’t get beyond p.thirty-five before tapping out. Strange, because only a few weeks earlier L wrote that they were enjoying this draft far more, enthused by how improved it was; and yet somehow all the notes on those torturous thirty-five pages seemed highly specific to the new style.

Truthfully, I might have sensed it coming. Certainly no grudges held.

That said. Louis Theroux voice: it was time to say goodbye.

No time to flinch.

On the upside, B it was the best new British book in several years; RT wrote it was unique and visionary; A said excellent set pieces, overall liked but didn’t love. FU, A! No, but seriously. Critical readers, tough readers, it’s everything when they speak.

B, for example, is a serious author of proven vintage. I’ve been using his quote as early praise in agent query letters. He said it, so why wouldn’t I.

Whatever the secret is to these letters in 2026 though, someone please tell me.

Rewinding for a minute.

Wider family matter to handle for ~three years. 60k word doc on it, non-fiction, written Liveblog style as it happened. Didn’t write it for anything other than to do it, make a record. Maybe there will be a time to work something out with it.

Coming out of the situation, recently to a point where it appears some way to settled, now feeling like okay let’s move.

No ego on me.

This week, I saw the shortlist for the Rhys Davies prize. Yes, I entered. I don’t know, man. I mean. Come on. I know how this comes over, me even mentioning it. Okay. Come on. Come on. We know. We do know. How could. If it. If I’m. And they’re. I’m putting my hand up: Walt Disney. Nike. Google. Is what is. And it’s all material.

There’s no ego on me to openly concede a loss, some might say a humiliation. No ego also means letting it go, saying the inside out loud: line level, sentence level, vibes level, I’m the nation’s best all day all day.

No ego. I’ll listen to any advice. I’m open to it all. All of it. I have earnest gratitude for any help sent my way: contacts, influence, backdoors. Whatever or however it comes, I’ll take it and pay it back when and how I can.

What I won’t do is flinch on taste, on vision. That’s not a discussion.

Coming up. A magazine in Türkiye is publishing an excerpt from the new novel. I’ve had work translated into Turkish previously. They approached me, I didn’t need to think about it. Anything like this is cool, I’m open to anything like this.

All my previous books have been translated into other languages. I love it and expect it. In Wales at least, the culture is that you shouldn’t take writing too seriously or expect too much. I don’t know. It’s life or death for me. And I love this.

People I went to school with built careers and salaries to upper-low-hundreds. I was a terror in jobs earning nothing, leaving early, running to the old Lufkin on Kings Rd to write for an hour, nothing more important than getting the next sentence r

The goal for the new novel, it’s definitely not about money. I mean, it is a little, a lot, about money: I think it’s not unreasonable, probably optimal, to imagine Cymru’s best novelist in an ‘89 Targa or Bordeaux-burgundy Ford Ranger. Ultimately, it’s more about: put me in the infrastructure, where it could lead, build a career, let me be myself.

I’ll sit on the novel for as long as it takes if that’s what it is.

I know it works to be patient.

MR, a screenwriter, recently acquired the rights for the film adaptation of my debut novel Hello Friend We Missed You. His passion for the book, we discussed it at length, how he’s up at night thinking on it. Talking, we saw the same colours on screen. M is a real one, way beyond safe hands. I’m not involved other than to talk if needed, give thoughts if asked, whatever I’m called for.

The new novel is very different, tonally and stylistically, to Hello Friend. And yet, I see it as more me, more me now. Robert and Emma Harford are generational, I promise. Generational what, that’s for the reader to decide.

Regarding the wider family matter I mentioned: I was writing with the handbrake on for a long moment. Then I got to the point where finally I could let go for what would be the most recent, finished, manuscript. That’s when and where I hit on it. The Tesco Western Ave Costa era: laughing out loud as I worked on edits, rewrites, comedic and dramatic set pieces.

Today. Deep into a handwritten draft of a new-new novel. Haven’t handwritten a book like this since I was nine. Set in Bae Colwyn and Genève: more new style, more new tone: no funnies on this one, a one and done bloodletting. Maybe some funnies somewhere, just like always.

Either way, someone call Fabrizio Romano because here we go!

What else?

Conducting an interview with DSZ. Yes, that DSZ.

Currently reading Flat Earth by AJL.

Listening to LG on BEE.

Watched Boogie Nights at Cineworld last Wednesday. First viewing, age 16, Sky Movies for holidays only. Flicked a switch, watched it the same day as Showgirls. Last week we all agreed it held up. Spoke to VLC from Quebec, he felt the same. After, I remembered how I leant VLC a CD thirty years ago and now my youngest child is in the same class as the lead singer’s kid. All real ones. They’re everywhere if you’re open to it.

Bar for bar, Drake wiped the floor with Kendrick.

See you legends in the next one

Some months before my debut novel was published, I interviewed for a job at a university creative writing department. The panel of lecturers who interviewed me asked how I would make the students ‘feel safe’, how I would ‘ensure their writing reflected the values of the university,’ and ‘help them find a place for their Creative Writing degree in the wider employment marketplace.’ Nice one, guys – nice one! 

Around eighteen years earlier, I made the hotly contested cut for the third year creative writing module at Manchester University. The two hours every Wednesday between three and five became a singular positive amongst what was otherwise a soul-crushingly dry English Lit degree.

After a thirty-second handover from our tutor, the novelist Martyn Bedford, it was announced that Bill Broady would cover the first semester of the third year. Bill’s novel Swimmer had been published a couple of years before by Flamingo, a then avant-garde imprint of HarperCollins – written in second person, Swimmer is immersive, nuanced, and immaculate.

The impact that Bill had on the group and, specifically, me was transformative. It feels like an origin story. The cut from the second year to the third year had left a perfectly millennial Russell Group group made up of future civil servants, a senior academic, a lawyer, a popstar turned lawyer, and a novelist.

From the jump, Bill was never anything other than Bill Broady: Novelist. Bill was compellingly, and initially shockingly, serious. He was also generous, cuttingly incisive, and authentic. Bill was an intimidating presence in a way that was hugely motivating. Bill led the workshop critiques in a style that was tough and uncompromising, but everyone in the room got on with it, actually talked, and laughed too. Bill is a very funny man, certainly far too funny for the straight A’s midwittery that dominated the Samuel Adams Building at the time, and yet he allowed people to get on board and be funny themselves, and critical, and engaged with the work. Inspired and encouraged by Bill, the group became relentlessly direct in their workshop feedback, and it was an enriching experience to hear peers say they strongly liked your work or, equally, strongly disliked it.

In hindsight, it was the only time I felt like I was in the university experience I had imagined beforehand, my vision based on what I’d seen on television or film – as the first gen of my family to have attended university, I had no other tangible frame of reference for what to expect. To this day, I’m grateful for Bill. He’s a real one, there’s no doubting that.

Bill’s new novel, The Night-Soil Men, was published in June of this year by Salt, and is centered around the origins of the Labour Party.

You don’t need to be a leftist to enjoy this novel! – my unsolicited blurb quote for TNSM.

There’s a control and ease to the writing that feels so timeless and graceful. It’s also a very funny novel, as has been noted in several reviews. I was both surprised and not surprised when Bill revealed the editing process for the TNSM – Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt is truly not being hyperbolic when he says that this is a ‘once in a lifetime novel.’

In the midst of the final stages of another round of edits on my novel-in-progress, I recently spoke with Bill via email.

ROR: The Night-Soil Men has been a decade in the making. Coming to the end of working on my new novel for 3-4 years and it feels like a relief, and time wise something I want to avoid happening again, if I can. I suppose it takes as long as it takes. Can you say something about this period of time – both generally for you and from a writing point of view?  And can you say something about how you felt towards the novel at various points during the ten years? 

Bill Broady: The curious history of “The Night-Soil Men”’ stretches back almost half a century. At school, my friends and I—convinced that we were all destined to be ‘Great Writers’—fell to discussing what books we might actually write. “Like Howard Spring’s ‘Fame Is The Spur’”, I piped up rather to my surprise, “but in the style of Louis-Ferdinand Celine.” I presumed that this might portend some ungodly fusion of solid/stolid socio-political material and coruscating expressionist modernist techniques.

In fact, when I was first published-- many years later—it was through writing very different things…but I had also come across, through one of my old friends, some fascinating legends and lore of the early years of the Labour Movement. Through a series of weird coincidences—fate and chance have always ruled my work—the narrative slowly came into focus. I spent five years researching it, then another five writing it. I started with the first and last sections then worked simultaneously backwards and forwards, like twin earwigs chewing through a brain, to finally converge at Chapter Nine. This, the”Oozolem Foozlem” section, was perhaps understandably the hardest part to write as it charts the extinction of a soul before the rebirth and reascent of the final sections. I finished it at the Hawthorden Foundation’s Scottish Castle on a month’s residential grant.   

ROR: It’s a very funny novel, which I intuited it would be before reading. Was this in your mind before starting? I know many years ago we spoke about a shared love of Fitzgerald’s Pat Hobby stories, which are to this day still incredibly funny to me. How important is humour to you in literature? And in other art forms. I think the majority of books, film, and even music that I enjoy have a strong comedic element to them. 

BB: You’ve got it! For me, humour drives all ships. Since the war, the great British comic tradition seems to have receded: the sound of laughter seldom echoes round the halls of culture—well, maybe the odd titter here and there. My wife Jane tells me that, back in the day, she was the only person laughing at performances of Beckett or Chekhov. I recall, more recently, our going to see Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” in the local Odeon where the entire audience were in stitches. “That Frank”, chuckled the fat man in the next seat, “He’s just like our kid!” We enjoyed the film so much that we saw it again in the local ‘art cinema’…This time you could have heard a pin drop—except for Jane and I, of course. As with all the greatest works—in any genre—you should end up laughing and crying at the same time. “The Joyous Wisdom”—as Nietzsche would put it. It is, of course, that comic vein—the jugular perhaps—that drew me to your own early and subsequent work.

ROR: Thank you, Bill. I’ve had a long and difficult relationship with humour, for many reasons, which I’ve written about a little, but I’m sure will go deeper on in the future; but when people tell me about parts of HFWMY that made them laugh, it’s always a real buzz. I laughed out loud at various moments in TNSM in a way that reminded me of how I laughed reading The Corrections. Any thoughts on The Corrections / Franzen in general?

BB: I read 'The Corrections' when it came out but wasn't that impressed—nor by a couple of subsequent books. I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember just why! I read more US fiction than British. Funniest books--"A Fan's Notes" by Fred Exley, Flannery O'Connor's ,"Wise Blood". Also The Pat Hobby Stories—of course-- and anything by Ring Lardner, W S Burroughs or Nathanael West."​ 

ROR: Salt editor/publisher Chris Hamilton-Emery called TNSM a ‘once in a lifetime masterpiece.’ That’s a great thing to hear from your editor. Can you tell me about the editing process for this book? I’d guess that you’ve edited it down quite a lot, especially given the novel’s long time span. Something I noticed right away was how quickly I settled into the novel, the attention to detail and immersion was undeniable, but done in such a clean way – which again I’d assume comes down to the edit. Personally I enjoy the editing process significantly more than writing the initial drafts. Is this the same for you? 

BB: Well, it certainly was a relief when Chris Hamilton Emery appeared out of the blue!  Every publisher we’d sent “TN-SM” to had declined it—very quickly, after reaching page 67, I reckon. Annette Green, my agent, never lost faith in the book and nor did I. Copies of the manuscript continued to circulate on a samizdat basis—people whose opinions I respected really liked it—and one of these found its way to Chris. He loved it and didn’t want me to change a word. The only minor revisions were mine prompted by recent new material in the field. In fact, no-one has ever edited any of my work—except for the short story collection when I agreed, against my better judgement, to change the title. It should have been called “The Tale Of The Golden Bath Taps” not “In This Block There Lives A Slag…” It was never just a slice of gritty northern realism…just an enchanted fairy tale.

ROR: That’s a real testament to Chris trusting your vision, and to how clean you must have got the manuscript. And, also, I personally know writers who’ve had titles changed with little or no discussion. It’s rough. How did it feel to be working with Salt, a large and ambitious independent press? And what are your thoughts about the publishing industry in general? 

BB: I used to co-edit a small poetry press—Redbeck—with the late David Tipton, so I knew of Salt’s inception and history. I’ve always enjoyed the company of poets—as well as visual artists or musicians—to that of novelists. I’ve generally found them to be a rather cagey crew! It also helps that I like Chris’ own work: he’s got a new collection “Modern Fog” out with the excellent Arc Press. Above all, though, he operates with a near-fanatical intensity and focus—getting through contacts, proofs and book design in two shakes of a lion’s tail.

I’ve got a backlog of unpublished work—three novellas, a short story collection(almost) and am halfway through another long historical book set in the 50’s art world. I’d probably favour doing these in the independent sector—given the chance!—rather than returning to a ‘bigger’ publisher. Not out of principle, I hasten to add, but because I rarely encountered anyone who really knew what they were doing. I used to work at Penguin Books in the ‘70s—admittedly I was only driving my forklift round the warehouse—but things didn’t use to be that way!

ROR: From Swimmer, a second person novel, to ITBLAS, a short fiction collection, then Eternity is Temporary, and now TNSM, a longer, historical lit novel. Are you consciously or maybe unconsciously seeking out a stylistic challenge when you start a project? Or does the form take what the form takes? 

BB: I sometimes wonder if I’m writing the same book from very different angles but then again perhaps not. As you say, the form does indeed take what the form takes. Blessed be the form!

ROR: For sure. I think to some extent at least it’s always going to be a case of writing the same book from different angles. I feel like the deeper you go, the more you uncover – so why wouldn’t you keep digging?

BB: You're absolutely right.

ROR: The Labour Party are returning to power in England at the same time as TNSM is published – did you manifest this? And is this you done with political / historical fiction? What’s next?

BB: Some people seem to think that I’ve knocked the book off as a Keir Starmer tie-in! Admittedly when I started writing it appeared that Uncle Jeremy was on the point of destroying civilization as we know it…I’m deep into this new book—“ROTHENSTEIN!”—the post-war British art scene is a fascinating period. Ian Sinclair’s new book also deals with the Francis Bacon ‘Set’.

ROR: Can you say a little more about Rothenstein?

BB: "Rothenstein!" will be another long book. Like "The Night-Soil Men" it's based on real people and concerns the mystery of "Evil" or "motiveless malignity" as Coleridge says of Iago...

ROR: Very nice. What books, film, TV, or music have you enjoyed in the last year or so?

BB: I admire Sinclair’s work—especially his poetry and earlier fiction—but this year it’s been Jon Fosse and Rudyard Kipling for me! Alison Moore’s “The Lighthouse”(Salt) and Vincent de Swarte’s “Pharricide” (Confingo) are two good novels with a similar theme.

Now, thanks to a recent ‘LRB’ piece by US writer Brandon Taylor, I’ve embarked on Zola’s “Rougon/Macquart” sequence. I’d only read a few of the better-known ones –many years ago when I felt that they were eclipsed by Balzac and Flaubert …but how wrong I was! I’m six books into the twenty and they’re wonderful. Hilariously funny, of course, but also unexpectedly poetic and sad, utterly belying Zola’s ‘forensic’ reputation. “His Excellency Eugene Rougon” has definite affinities with “TN-SM”: I seem to have been heavily influenced by these books without ever having read them!

ROR: I know what you mean. I’ve never read Beckett but have more than once heard the comparison. I can only think that there are personality archetypes who, if they become writers, are likely to inhabit a similar vibe as one another.

BB: Favourite recent film: “Past Lives”—if only because it ends with John Cale’s “You Know More Than I Know”. Tomorrow night we’re off to “Kinds of Kindness”—I loved “The Lobster” and the first half of “Poor Things”.

I like the latest Lana del Rey record—especially “Margaret”.

ROR: I enjoyed that album a lot. A&W is the song I’ve listened to the most on it. I’ve been listening to Lana Del Rey and Stevie Nicks’ duet Beautiful People Beautiful Problems as I work on editing my manuscript.

BB: Live music these days is mostly orchestral or opera but I’m looking forward to the great David Murray playing Ronnie Scotts in November in a one-off TEATIME gig. My God, what’s happened to Francis Bacon’s Soho?

As for TV, Jane and I are still missing “The Marvellous Mrs Maysel”. Ah, Tony Shalhoub—un veritable artiste!

ROR: Bill, I feel like I’m back in the strip-lit second floor room of the Samuel Alexander Building. Thank you so much.

You can buy The Night-Soil Men by Bill Broady - Here

A second season of Will Say More Later, After My Run will begin once I finish my novel. Thank you.

I spoke with Jordan for Wales Arts Review in September 2022. This is the final Wales Arts Review that I will be republishing here, from this point onwards interviews will be ‘Substack Originals’. I have written this, a new introduction to the interview. The new introduction has not been checked for accuracy or edited, it is my thoughts as they come off the top.

I enjoyed this interview a lot. Jordan and I really got into it.

In the week following the interview with Jordan being published, I was followed on Twitter by the billionaire Mark Andreessen. Mark also follows Jordan, and I assume that Mark read the Wales Arts Review interview via Jordan and followed me as a result. We haven’t interacted yet, but I like that he follows me - if Mark wants me to interview him, or if he would like a copy of my novel Hello Friend We Missed You, he only needs to ask!

I’ve spoken to Jordan a couple of times very briefly since the interview and he has told me that he thinks The Novelist is doing well. I think and hope it should do well, and from what I’ve seen the reviews have all been positive to strongly positive.

As well as Eric being a very specifically nuanced character, and an amusing one to read about for various reasons, I continue to be fascinated by the character of Eric in The Novelist. One of the things I enjoy most about reading autofiction is attempting to decipher who might be who - it’s a topic that regularly comes up with my friend Connor, a novelist himself.

As I read The Novelist, I felt sure I knew who Eric was, at least in part, based on. I also recall feeling like Eric wasn’t solely based on one person, and I had a feeling I knew another author who might have been an inspiration for the character. I didn’t feel overly keen on pushing this with Jordan during the interview.

Jordan was recently interviewed on Lit Visions – I haven’t yet finished listening to his conversation with Dhru but have enjoyed what I have heard of it so far.

This is the interview as it appeared in Wales Arts Review -

Jordan Castro’s debut novel, The Novelist (Soft Skull Press, 2022), follows an unnamed narrator over the course of a single morning as he attempts to write an autobiographical novel.

Jordan and I discussed topics including Jordan Castro, ‘writer types’, Gordon Lish, habit, faith, and chadded dispositions.

ROR: The Novelist features a character, a controversial author called Jordan Castro, who the novel’s unnamed narrator obsesses over from a distance. In your conversation with Tao Lin for Paris Review you discuss the differing thoughts and interpretations about this Jordan Castro; running joke, nightmarish vision, Joe Rogan-esque parody - all these seem possible, simultaneously or separately.

Did you wonder or care when writing, or now that the book is out, how readers might respond to the Jordan Castro character? 

JC: When I was writing it, I was a little worried, in a general way, about that character, in part because he wasn’t fully formed, but after editing it more I felt good about it. He serves various functions in the novel, you’re right, but in terms of potential readers, I guess he is a kind of provocation: for the illiterate “readers” who conflate narrators with authors, he distances me from the narrator; and for those who are not only illiterate but also ideologically possessed, he’s like “Listen, I understand your little game.”

ROR: The Novelist reads as having been superbly edited – and going back to re-read various segments it feels very lean – which is quite something given that most of the novel is the narrator ruminating on various topics and mundane processes. Having been an editor yourself how would you describe your ideology or approach to editing – both for your own work, and more widely for other writers?

JC: I write in bursts then spend most of my time editing. My first drafts are always terrible. When I edited New York Tyrant, I spent some time with the Gordon Lish lineage, who emphasize the sentence as the most important unit, so I’ve taken some ideas from them—like their word economy, and the idea that sentences should sound and look good, and build on one another consecutively. I like the Garielle Lutz essay, “The Sentence is a Lonely Place,” even though I think it goes too far. I think a novel should contain ideas. A lot of literary ‘schools’ are basically just fetishes: there is only the sentence, or only the idea, or only the social context, and so on. I am not a fetishist. I want novels that work harmoniously, and take the order of things into account.

ROR: I’ve read that Garielle Lutz essay a few times over the years. I think the last occasion was when I was editing Hello Friend We Missed You. I agree the essay goes too far, although I feel knowingly and rightly so. With precision on sentences or word choice you can’t half ass it, you have to believe in it or why bother at all? Franzen has spoken about letting go of an obsession with style and precision, but he's probably only able to do that having obsessed over it so much in the first place. 

JC: I’ve never read Franzen, but people keep telling me I should… I don’t think most writers should be less obsessed with style though. I spent years obsessed with sentences, and I think it served me well. 

ROR: I can see a Lish energy in The Novelist, for sure. Lish is a big influence personally – I worked at Borders and stole a copy of Beginners, which had just been released. To read the difference in Carver’s stories without Lish’s hand on them was a lesson for me – none were improved, and some were, amongst other things, shockingly diminished.

A friend sent me a tweet advocating for the return of the Gordon Lish model, kingmaker editor. This seems preferable. Editing New York Tyrant – which in that period put out so much great work – I guess you had sole editorial control?

JC: Yeah, I ran the website by myself. One of the reasons we’d say Tyrant was called Tyrant is because “Good art isn’t made by a democracy.” It’s true.  

ROR: I agree. Speaking of Tyrant – I recently recorded an essay centring on Giancarlo for BBC Radio 4. Having worked with him, how do you see his legacy?

JC: In a time when diversity is the stated goal of almost every American publisher, and things have paradoxically never felt more homogenized, Tyrant legitimately did stand out. I loved Gian, and I miss him—he was my friend. In terms of his legacy, I guess time will tell. Catherine Foulkrod and Gian’s husband are doing a foundation in Gian’s name.

ROR: The character of Eric, a former friend of the narrator, struck me as an eerily familiar figure. It was amusing and relatable to see the novelist obsessing over him, and for that matter ‘writer types’ in general. The idea of a person as a ‘writer type’ seems very real to me. The ‘writer activist’ also.

JC: I think we have an overabundance of “writers.” In the U.S, there are over 200 creative writing MFA programs; a million books (across genres) get published each year, and only 2% sell 5,000 or more copies. So not only does everyone think of themselves as a writer, but there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people with credentials to “prove” it. There just aren’t that many good writers, and now there aren’t even any jobs in academia for them. So these people went to school, racked up a bunch of debt, had all of their vitality and curiosity beaten out of them with “theory” and replaced with snide arrogance, and now they’re in a worse position materially than they were before they started. It’s no wonder they become resentful and lash out. This is one way of thinking about the philistinism that has infected literary culture in America. There is no “principle” behind it besides resentment and rivalry.

ROR: Is it possible Eric will appear again - will we ever hear his side of the story?

JC: Like Kiekegaard, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky before me, I think it’s impossible to overstate the importance of ressentiment. You can’t tell a true story about our world without it, and yet it’s totally absent from contemporary literature. Our literature is written from the perspective of ressentiment. It’s the animating force behind so much of what is happening. That being said, one can’t just accuse others and absolve oneself. So while Eric definitely characterises a certain idiocy, which can be found in abundance in any literary or artistic sphere, Eric is also the object of the narrator’s own ressentiment—the narrator himself is impotent, trying and failing to write, and so on. 

I imagine some version of Eric will appear in all of my novels, in part because he is inside of me somewhere. I’m planning on having my third novel be broader in scope, with real characters and so on, and I think I’ll include “the Eric point of view” in that. Dostoevsky famously quipped that no one had ever written a better argument in favor of atheism than he did, even though he was a Christian. At some point I want to do the same with the ideology that’s come to dominate our culture. I am the new Dostoevsky.

ROR: The analysis of the narrator’s former classmate was supremely nice. I did something similar in Hello Friend We Missed You. I mean, obviously everyone does this, it’s not just writers, but the depth of analysis of Facebook photos or online presence must surely be something writers do more than most? 

JC: Occasionally my friend Evan and I end up going on Facebook excursions together, and it was through plunging to the depths of former classmates’ pages that we first discerned a kind of violence beneath “vacation photos.” Certain people literally only post vacation photos, and it seems like they’re on vacation all the time. The reflections might seem “deeper,” rendered in a novel, than they actually are. Now I’m very happy for vacationers in general.

ROR: I’ve wrestled with it as being potentially a negative thing to engage in, mainly for time wasting reasons. Though it feels too good a tool for finding nuance or specificity to riff on to simply abandon entirely. Also, compared to say the writer-activists of Twitter, non-writers using Facebook in a totally un-curated way is probably more life-affirming and open hearted?  

JC: My friend Amy, who is a gardener and doesn’t have Twitter, showed me this narcolepsy Facebook group she’s a part of, and it was full of the same kinds of psychotic pedantry that takes place on Twitter, only applied to narcolepsy. A classic one I remember was when someone with narcolepsy said she got it from the swine flu vaccine, and so she wasn’t sure if she should vaccinate her kids, and people were being so mean to her, calling her names, saying that getting narcolepsy is a small price to pay for not getting swine flu, that her post was “dangerous,” and so on, you can imagine. Amy also said the Guinea Pig Facebook groups have good arguments too but I haven’t checked them out yet. And when I lived in Maryland, I would go on jogs with my older neighbor, a janitor at a place that did something with steel, and he would tell me all the time that he needed to delete his Facebook because it made him too angry. So I don’t think it’s just a writer thing. 

One downside of the internet is that it’s resulted in this levelling—we are becoming increasingly similar, all crammed together, abstracted by image and text. We live in this perverse, inverted reality in which we mistakenly believe that we can “make a change” by arguing endlessly with avatars, and we can treat our friends and family like shit as long as it is for “the greater good.” Imagine a bunch of identical bees swarming around a smashed carcass—that’s the internet. 

ROR: For sure. ‘Crammed together’ is a good way of putting it. I don’t care what strangers think and have even less interest in trying to ‘change their minds’ about anything.

I recently realized that I had genuinely repaired a lifelong relationship simply by not interacting with the individual online – and the same is true from his perspective, I’m sure. Face to face as men we simply talked, got on with things, and felt happiness. The alternative approach being we could have continued treating each other like shit online and seen where that got us.

JC: Damn, good job. There are a couple people who I should probably do that with, but I’m still essentially unwilling. I hear you about “changing people’s minds” though. I want to become more loving, forgiving, charitable, humble, and for whatever “change” I may or may not affect to be an outgrowth of that spirit. None of that requires putting a fedora on and Changing Minds like some sort of wizard. People change their thoughts and opinions all the time – almost always for unprincipled reasons – but when their hearts change, that’s the good stuff. 

ROR: I think it was during your appearance on Red Scare that you spoke about how prayer was something you initially tried, stuck at, and then gradually began to feel as something realer and profound. Not to take away from the specifically religious aspect of this experience, but this seems to speak also to the benefit of forming and maintaining good habits in general – I know from personal experience how persistent commitment to fitness, and being in nature, gradually, then profoundly, changed my mentality. 

Has prayer and faith helped your creative process?

JC: Yeah man, lifting weights and praying literally changed my life. The combo has given me a kind of chadded disposition, whereas I used to be just totally neurotic. Prayer and faith have also helped me take more risks. There is this idea that the fear of God is some coercive tactic, that God is some psychopathic tyrant who wants people to fear him for no reason, but it’s actually the opposite: the fear of God—the fear of not aligning oneself with transcendent Goodness, Love, etc—protects against the fear of other people, which is way more corrosive and tyrannical, and has a way more tortured effect on people. We have to look up, and then around, if we want to make good art.

ROR: The narrator in The Novelist – a recovering addict – has his own habitual behaviours, and he seems aware that they’re mostly negative, specifically his fixation with the internet. And yet even with this self-awareness he continues to engage in them. I remember in the immediate period after giving up alcohol I replaced alcohol with the less damaging but still not positive action of drinking sugary drinks, before then gradually working to a point of introducing only positive habits.

JC: I did the same thing when I got sober. Real change is often gradual. As more of my own bullshit got chipped away, more bullshit got revealed over time, and is still getting revealed. In some basic sense, the internet is drug-like—it is designed to addict, creates a chemical response in the brain, can be a spiritual hindrance, and so on. But I think all addictive objects are basically “symbols” for a deeper spiritual malady, which can attach itself to different things, and take more or less extreme forms. 

ROR: I hear you, working on self is a lifelong process – and that should be celebrated rather than resisted or ignored. I enjoyed the optimism, as I saw it, of the ending of The Novelist. Its open-ended nature links back to the prayer/consistency idea that essentially finding a better, more elevated way of living is one step at a time until one day you realize that you’re getting somewhere. Same goes for writing a novel, I feel.

JC: Totally. Simone de Beauvoir, writing about freedom in the novel, said that a novel’s success depends on the illusion of “characterological freedom”—the character or narrator must “seem free”—which, for her, was the result of the author not knowing beforehand what the character would do. The novel “reveals itself” to the author through the act of writing, in a way that can’t be planned beforehand, and that is better as a result. This is similar to a prayerful life. If I can orient myself away from my cramped will through prayer, then act, not trying to control outcomes, but rather taking small steps, then I can have faith that the outcome will be good. My own vision can be so stunted, and when I let life, or my writing, “unfold”—if I “participate” in it rather than try to control it in a fundamentally ideological way—I’m often surprised to see things come to fruition that I didn’t even think to want beforehand. 

I like the idea in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning that the meaning of life isn’t some big abstract thing, but rather it’s latent in each small decision in front of us. In Hebrews, a book in the bible commonly attributed to Paul, he defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This could also be a description of action. Action involves stepping forward into the unknown; it always operates on a kind of faith, even if it’s unarticulated. Without faith, one cannot act.

Something that I forgot to mention in my new introduction above was Jordan asking me to request an edit the interview, post-publication, to include him claiming the title of ‘The New Dostoevsky’ I enjoyed this, very relatable.

I enjoyed reading, and finishing, Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation, having dipped in and out over the last couple of months. I would give it a medium to strong medium recommendation - although Tarantino’s dislike of 80s cinema doesn’t work for me, and most of the 70s exploitation stuff he enjoys is a pass to strong pass as far as I’m concerned.

Other books I have read or listened to segments of this week: Spare, by Harry Windsor. May Day, by Fitzgerald. White, by BEE. The Shards, by BEE. Champions Die, Too, Don’t They?, the English translation of Miroslav Ćurčić’s novel.

I spoke with Chelsea for Wales Arts Review in June 2022. I have written this, a new introduction to the interview. The new introduction has not been checked for accuracy or edited, it is my thoughts as they come off the top.

Having read Chelsea’s essay collection Tonight I’m Someone Else (Holt) in 2021 (or maybe late 2020), I recently read a piece of short fiction by Chelsea, published in the most recent issue of Triangle House Review. The piece, called Truce, was the first fiction of Chelsea’s that I have read.

Specific aspects of the writing style reminded me of Chelsea’s essays. At the same time I also felt like there was an evolution of the style elsewhere in the piece. As I recall the piece now, and recall thinking the first time I read it, the final lines of each paragraph in Truce are all bangers in true CH style. 

The paragraph I think most about is the one about the dog, the brutality of the situation was finessed remarkably well. I think I used a line from this segment when I quoted the piece on Twitter.

Prior to this interview, I worked with Chelsea on a non-fiction piece that would become Working Weird, my first post on here. I knew from taking Chelsea’s course at Bennington that she had very clear editorial instincts and found working with her again on Working Weird – at that point titled The Plagiarism – to be hugely beneficial, both for the piece itself and as a broader approach to editing.

Chelsea’s observation that the piece was an ‘inversion of the ‘plagiarism essay genre’’ - I don’t know if it was Chelsea or me who said it in those terms specifically, but it was certainly Chelsea who originally clarified the idea - and the ensuing discussion that followed this, was very important and changed the piece significantly, and for the better.

Many of Chelsea’s suggestions during the editing process, such as the one above, were ideas that I had felt, either subconsciously or semi-consciously, but hadn’t been able to articulate or materialize up to that point. In part, I think this may have been down to my closeness to the material; that said, I feel like only a small percentage of editors would have seen the piece with the precision and insight that Chelsea did.

Recently, Chelsea has started the Morning Writing Club. If you are a writer looking to work with a high taste and high nuanced writer/editor, I would recommend giving it consideration.

This is the interview as it appeared in Wales Arts Review -

Chelsea Hodson is the author of the essay collection Tonight I’m Someone Else (Holt). Topics we discussed include Bret Easton Ellis, the Kardashians, Marina, Tehching, rural life, bitter teachers, and operating outside of mainstream approval. 

Richard Owain Roberts: I enjoyed reading your recent interview with Kendall Jenner. Going back to the moment in December 2019 when Kendall was photographed on a yacht as she read your essay collection Tonight I’m Someone Else, I liked how many post-it notes Kendall appeared to have put in the book. Where and how did you see this photo for the first time, and what did you feel when you first saw it and then later when you had processed it?

Chelsea Hodson: A month before Kendall was photographed on the yacht reading my book, she had posted a video on her Instagram of the books her agent had given her for her birthday. My book was in that stack, so I knew that Kendall had my book in her possession, but when a fashion writer I didn’t know DMed me the initial paparazzi photos, I thought someone was playing a prank on me. I mean, the bikini photos were unreal, so I just thought, “There’s no way this is real.” Soon, the photos were all over TMZ and The Daily Mail, so then it became apparent how real it was. It was a wild day—keep in mind, my book had come out a year and a half prior to these photos. So, my book seemed kind of like old news, even to me. But this gave it a whole new life, which I could have never anticipated.

ROR: Kendall grew up on TV. I have seen maybe thirteen full Keeping Up With The Kardashians episodes, and on multiple occasions 5–20-minute segments from various episodes and to me the show feels somewhere between performance art, sitcom, and something else. It seems soothingly well-crafted. The comic timing, in particularly the three older sisters, is wild.

Something about shows like KUWTK for me replicates how good films that use non-actors, thinking about directors such as Andrea Arnold or Sean Baker for example, can be in terms of the performances elicited and, separately, also the canvas you have for the edit.

CH: I think it’s tempting to say reality television is a kind of performance art, but I think that gives too much credit to the people on these shows. Being self-aware is different from being an artist, and entertainment is not necessarily art. Essentially, I think reality television is trash, and to accompany this statement, I should say I’ve seen almost every episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (I stopped watching in 2019 or so). There is a calming, neutralizing effect to reality television—one that I find both soothing and incredibly dangerous. But I would be lying if I said there wasn’t something intriguing about watching the Kardashians’ rise to fame. It’s helped me make sense of the American tendency to worship celebrities—if you understand that, then a lot of fame-hungry artist behavior begins to make a lot more sense.

ROR: That rings very true. You taught at Bennington College. When I attended online, it felt amusing and thrilling to be able to tell people I was at Bennington. Was Bennington’s history a big deal for you? I’m guessing it’s a very different vibe now to that 80s heyday, but did it still feel special and could you sense the history there?

CH: I left my position at Bennington earlier this year in order to focus more on my own writing as well as on my freelance editorial consultations and workshops, but Bennington has been a huge part of my life—I got my MFA there before I was offered a teaching position. When I was on campus as a graduate student, I would do things like try to find Bret Easton Ellis’ old dorm room, and wonder if the music building really was the inspiration for Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (there is some debate on this, but I really want to believe it is). So, it is definitely a special place.

ROR: BEE, along with Donna, is probably the most celebrated student of Bennington, and is someone whose writing I’ve admired for many years. I enjoy listening to his podcast, although I miss the adverts he used to read; adverts that he also edited and spent time finessing and re-writing, something that seems equally heart-warming and very comical to imagine.

Do you listen to BEE’s podcast? How do you feel about The Shards?

CH: Yes, I am a subscriber to Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast, and I listened faithfully to The Shards. I’m drawn to polarizing artists and writers—those who people either love or hate. I’m increasingly interested in how artists operate outside of mainstream approval, too, so I admired the way he shared The Shards as he wrote it. The thing I like the most is Ellis’ film criticism, which makes me want to write my own.

ROR: Definitely, and I would be interested to read that. The episodes where Bret covers a whole year of cinema at a time are inspiring to me. The Tom Cruise deep dive with Nic Pizzolatto was something else too. Is there an actor, director, or year you’d most like to listen to receive the full BEE treatment?

I found one of my favorite films, Under the Silver Lake, from listening to Bret Easton Ellis talk about it on his show, so I’d be curious to hear an interview with or more analysis of director David Robert Mitchell. I find Under the Silver Lake to be totally fascinating and perplexing, and I've watched a lot of YouTube videos attempting to analyze it, and nothing seems exactly right. I like the film more every time I watch it, which almost never happens.

ROR: Rereading some of Tonight I'm Someone Else and the mentions of Arizona – was your recent move there a move back home?

CH: My move last year was a move back home to Arizona, but not to my hometown, Phoenix, or my college town, Tucson, which are both insanely hot desert towns. My house in Sedona is in a forest at high elevation, so it can get quite cold (it even snows), and it’s not quite the Raising Arizona-style scenery that people seem to envision when I tell them I live in Arizona.

ROR: Did you consider the impact on writing as part of moving from the city to a more rural area?

CH: Absolutely. I used to think of my life in Brooklyn as stimulating and exciting, which it was in many ways, but it was also draining and exhausting, too. Whenever I took trips out of the city to write, whether it was a writing residency in New Hampshire, an Airbnb in upstate New York, or my friend’s family’s barn in Connecticut, I noticed the same thing: in these quiet, green places, my writing came more easily and the quality of my writing was superior. Throughout the first year of COVID in New York, my husband and I just kept aching to leave until there was no choice but to leave.

ROR: How are you finding the difference in location, if any, from a creative point of view?

CH: I find that I love living in a place that feels truly wild. Every day, I see some sort of wildlife—a blue heron, a coyote, a bobcat, a deer, a pack of javelina. This is normal here, but it’s still totally exotic and exciting to me. I realize that the older I get, the more important it has become to feel like I’m connected to nature in some way, even if that’s just by living in the middle of nowhere. I never want to live in a city again.

ROR: I recently moved from working mostly in cafes to working in a cabin at the bottom of my garden. I enjoy the quiet, although sometimes miss the loosely-scripted-feeling conversations with baristas. Working in the cabin means I can start writing very early in the morning, sometimes around four, depending on various things. You talked, I think, about getting up early to work?

CH: I think the time right after waking up is really precious, in terms of a kind of untainted atmosphere in my brain. Ideally, I haven’t looked at my email or phone yet, and I haven’t had to do anything except make my cup of coffee and sit at my desk. When I was writing Tonight I’m Someone Else, I used to think that writing immediately after waking was a way to write more directly from my subconscious—I thought of it as having one foot in my dream world and one foot in my “real” world. Looking at the sentences I wrote in that state, I can see that it worked. Now, I think the time of day has become less important—for instance, these days I exercise right after I wake up, and I write after breakfast. It’s just about creating that uninterrupted space around my writing that’s most important.

ROR: I’ve mentioned a couple of times in two or three different places that Tonight I’m Someone Else is one of my favourite books from the last few years. Thank you for writing it.

In the essay I’m Only a Thousand Miles Away, a bitter art teacher Mr. Bell (real name) mocks Hanson, the band. I also had a bitter art teacher, Mr. Roebuck (real name), and he was by no means the only bitter and insane-seeming teacher I’ve experienced. What do you think motivates teacher such as Mr. Bell and Mr. Roebuck to be like this?

CH: So many of my teachers seemed genuinely unhappy, and I think Mr. Bell was a musician who never made it or even really tried to make it, and then we all had to suffer his judgment calls as a result. Even as a very young child, I remember thinking, “Why can’t he just let me love Hanson in peace?” I was going to change his name in my book, but I thought it was too funny to leave out.

ROR: Using real names is something I want to do more of, it does seem very funny. Tonight I’m Someone Else has recently been translated into Italian by Pidgin Edizioni. Congratulations! Have you heard TISE spoken in Italian yet?

CH: Thank you! No, I haven’t heard the book spoken in Italian, but reading the reviews in Italian is totally amazing to me. I’ve been slowly learning and practicing Italian for the past couple of years, so I can kind of clumsily message these Italian writers in Italian and thank them for reading my book. The translator of my book, Sara Verdecchia, was working as an assistant to my friend Giancarlo DiTrapano in the months before he died, so that was a meaningful connection for me. Some of Sara’s questions about certain phrases or sentences in the book revealed the vagueness of some of my writing—she would ask me, “What does it mean when you say this?” And I would have to explain, “It doesn’t mean anything, it came to me in a dream and I just thought it sounded good there.”

ROR: You were close with the late Giancarlo DiTrapano, founder of Tyrant Books and you co-ran the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop with him from his villa in Italy. I didn’t know him well at all but even looking mostly from the outside I could see the taste, style, commitment. I appreciate your relationship, he was very real to you, but to someone on the outside, certainly to me, he could easily take up a somewhat mythical status. Stevie Knicks, Rooms On Fire levels. Very rare to have a fully formed character like that exist in real life, I feel. And to not compromise on it. What was Gian about for you?

CH: Giancarlo would have loved that Stevie Nicks reference. You’re right—he had a mythical quality about him, and that has perhaps even intensified after his death. He and I were unlikely friends—complete opposites in almost every way. But our friendship had a foundation of complete mutual respect—we admired and looked up to each other, or at least that's how it felt to me. I’m an introvert, so I really prefer to be left alone most of the time, but for our Italy workshop, I’d spend up to 12 days with Giancarlo, basically attached at the hip, teaching together, running errands together, eating every meal together, and still sometimes we’d stay up late at night laughing hysterically, just the two of us. I’ve never had that kind of connection with someone, and I know that I’ll never have it again. So, although that is sad, I feel really lucky to have found that kind of friendship at least once in my life.

ROR: We both like the comedian Theo Von, and we’ve discussed that we’re the only people we know who do. I don’t even really know what it is for me. A guy, very singular, his directness, and how at ease he is with himself. There’s something very comforting about this.

CH: I’m a big fan of several comedians—I watched a ton of stand-up comedy when I was still afraid to write about myself and I felt like I was garnering courage to write personal essays. Books helped me, but there was something about watching someone alone onstage speaking about their life (exaggerated or not, fictional or not) that really inspired me. It seemed so raw and vulnerable, and I tried to make sure all my essays felt that way, even if they weren’t funny. But last year, Marc Maron said on his Instagram Live that a lot of my paragraphs were like punch lines, and that was some of the highest praise I’ve ever received. My book gets lumped into the “sad girl” category a lot, which I definitely understand, but the fact that a comedian I admire thought it was funny meant a lot to me. As for Theo Von, he’s one of many comedians whose podcasts I listen to—his off-the-cuff remarks are unmatched.

ROR: Talking of improvisation and performance, you thank Marina Abramovich in the acknowledgements of TISE. She features in the essay Pity The Animal. I know also you’ve been motivated or inspired by other performance artists – thank you for telling me about Tehching Hsieh. One Year Performance 1985-1986 (No Art Piece) is really great, but the way he doubles down and pivots to Tehching Hsieh 1986-1999 (Thirteen Year Plan) is something I think about often with a lot of fondness and amusement.

What is it about these two artists, and performance art in general, that interest you so much?

CH: Marina Abramovic is also referenced in my essay “The New Love,” but I didn’t name her because I thought it would be confusing out of context. In 2014, I sent a copy of my chapbook “Pity the Animal” to the Marina Abramovic Institute because I thought its existence owed a lot to her work and her performance at MoMA, but I never expected anything to come out of it—I just wanted her (or at least the Institute) to have a copy. To my surprise, I heard back from the Institute and they invited me to come meet with them. A few months later, I was hired to be an assistant on Abramovic’s exhibition, Generator. It was totally surreal, since I had spent the prior year studying her work and reading everything I could about her. Suddenly, she was in my life—touching my face, calling me “Chel-see-ya”, and teaching me how to walk in slow motion. I feel strongly that my experiences and training with her greatly influenced who I am as a writer. I once spoke with her about a performance I was planning to do (it was called Inventory: Under Objects Under Oath)—I told her I was planning on practicing the reading in my room to figure out how long it would take. When I told her this, she said, basically, oh no, you can’t do that. You can’t plan like that. The audience is what gives you energy, so you have to use that to perform, you can’t plan it out in advance. This went against my controlling, over-prepared nature, and it was a revelation for me. She was essentially saying, you have to trust yourself with the task you’ve set out to do, and if you fail, it just becomes part of the performance. My goal has always been to write a perfect book, but now I understand that an imperfect book is, in many ways, much more interesting.

I watched White Noise this week and enjoyed, for the most part, the first two acts immensely. The ‘duelling lecture’ was perfectly rendered, as were - as you’d expect - some Godly dialogues between the Driver and the other characters. Driver carried the film. A big turn off were the Andersonian whimsy flexes, particularly involving the wider group of college lecturers. White Noise’s final act was increasingly disastrous, a really bad smell that brought the whole experience down several notches.

Baumbach Film Tiers:

God Tier: Squid & The Whale, Margot At The Wedding, Greenberg

Elite Tier: Marriage Story, Frances Ha

Mid Tier: While We’re Young, Meyerowtiz Stories

Bumbach: White Noise, Mistress America

I watched, but cannot remember, Kicking & Screaming. I recall feeling like it wasn’t a fully realised Baumbach.

I would have liked to have seen a Baumbach Corrections adaptation.

It is possible I will write a full essay on Baumbach in the future.

My favourite books by Tao are Shoplifting From American Apparel, Richard Yates (both Melville House), and Taipei (Vintage). I have come to view these books as a trilogy. I think they read like a developing, evolving sequence of novels - which is interesting to me because you can track and analyse the changes in prose style and also - yes, this is auto fiction - what was going on in and around moments of TL’s life during these periods. I’m not sure, perhaps I’ve read this somewhere, that Tao himself views these books as a trilogy. Although I might be mistaken and, thinking about it, it could be Taipei, Trip, and Leave Society that TL sees as such.

SFAA was influential to me in terms of the sentence-by-sentence precision, the humour, the spare prose style, and how these three things come together so well. The inmate with the mop stared at the inmate without a mop – along those lines.

I enjoyed the look and feel of the book too - and it was as a result of reading SFAA from Melville House’s novella series that I first read Fitzgerald’s May Day.

Richard Yates sits between SFAA and Taipei and I recall how it felt – even at the time of reading – like a bridge towards a longer, denser novel (that novel being Taipei.) The sentences in Richard Yates were lengthier than those in SFAA but still retained the mostly declarative, spare style and, as I type, I think I remember Tao mentioning this conscious change-up in an interview.

Taipei has an iconic cover with an equally iconic, and abbreviated, BEE blurb quote - a quote that, in its full form, I fundamentally disagree with. Taipei feels like a finely crafted, generationally canonical novel that I will reread years from now. Taipei’s ending is excellent as I recall it.

There is a film adaptation for Taipei that I have not seen, and in hindsight would have made myself watch so I could have asked Tao about it in the interview.

Leave Society (Vintage), is Tao’s most recent novel. I remember, I think it was about a year prior to its release, I listened to Tao reading an excerpt – that I don’t think made it into the final version of the book, though I could be wrong. The excerpt was extremely, explicitly funny and seemed to suggest a tone and scale similar to a Franzonian family novel. The excerpt-style bickering familial humour did make it into Leave Society, but it seemed to often take a backseat to research about health, nutrition, and partnership vs. dominator societies. I was going to ask Tao about this audio excerpt in the interview, and whether there was ever a version of Leave Society that focused more heavily on the family dynamics and had less research information, but I think I either forgot to ask or wasn’t sure how to put the question.

This is the interview as it appeared in Wales Arts Review -

I messaged Tao Lin, author of Leave Society (Vintage), to ask if he would like to be interviewed. Tao said he would and the topics we covered via email include parents, autofiction, aliens, health, childhood and island life. Thank you Wales Arts Review for letting us say it.

Richard Owain Roberts: Leave Society is a novel that made me laugh a lot. Specifically the cycle of bickering, side-taking, apologizing and then on some occasions new bickering between Li and his parents. Were you finding it amusing as you typed it, and do you find it amusing to think about or read now? 

Tao Lin: I’m glad my book made you laugh a lot. Thanks for reading it and laughing. I did feel amused—on some level, to some degree, at times—while typing and editing its bickering-apologizing-bickering scenes, initially in my notes and then in drafts of the book over six years. I also sometimes felt troubled, discouraged, and/or unamused. When I read my novel now, I mostly find it amusing. My mom has also said that she finds the bickering, when she reads about it in my novel, amusing.

ROR: What, either in books, on screen, or life in general, do you typically find amusing?

TL: I’ve recently found Kuhnian crises amusing. A Kuhnian crisis—described by Thomas Kuhn, the philosopher of science—is when a series of small, incremental, seemingly reasonable steps lead theorists deeper into a dead end, like in geocentricism—the theory that everything revolves around Earth in perfect circles. People kept adding “ad hocs” to try to make the inaccurate theory work—”epicycles” said the other planets moved in subcircles in addition to their normal circles, “ex-center” said the circles were off-center; and so on.

ROR: That does sound amusing. I grew up on Ynys Môn, a small island, and my novel, Hello Friend We Missed You, is, as some people have seen it, an ‘island novel’. Like Li, you now live in Hawaii. Does island life suit you, do you feel? 

TL: Your novel sounds good. I would like to read it. I’m not sure if island life suits me. I like the island I’m on, though—it’s called the Big Island. I didn’t like Oahu—the most populated Hawaiian island, where I lived for around a year—as much, due in part to there being a lot of military aircraft there, and due in part to it being kind of crowded. In a global catastrophe, I wouldn’t want to be on Oahu. The Big Island seems better for global catastrophes—there are no cities, there is a lot of space, and flora and fauna seem abundant.

ROR: Is there anything you like less about living on Big Island? 

TL: Maybe that it’s harder for me to visit friends and family who aren’t on the island, and vice versa.

ROR: Has moving to Hawaii changed your writing routine, if you have a routine?

TL: Moving to Hawaii has not changed my writing routine, no. That seems more influenced by what I’m writing and what stage I’m at with the writing. I do have a routine, but it changes. Lately I’ve been working on writing for 4-6 hours in the daytime, then researching and hand-editing on paper for 1-2 more hours at night.

ROR: I felt you captured Li’s cycle of frustration with his parents’ approach to health, at times aggressive-seeming desire to help, and gradual chilling out very well. Thank you for writing about this. 

TL: You’re welcome. I’m glad you felt that I captured his frustration cycle well.

ROR: In my experience, I feel like it can be a relentless uphill battle to convince a parent of less damaging, nature-based remedies and dietary changes. Is this struggle still ongoing with your parents, and do you still sometimes get frustrated with them?

TL: I haven’t seen my parents in two years due to the pandemic. But we’ve been getting along really well in video calls, talking once a week for like 80 minutes at a time. My dad takes little of my health advice, but my mom and I both research health topics independently and discuss health issues in a friendly, productive, non-frustrating way, by this point, in 2021. We’ve gotten better at communication over years.

ROR: That’s good to hear. My communication with my parent has also improved gradually, and ultimately significantly, over the last two years. Poor health and nutrition feels deeply ingrained in Welsh culture for mostly economic and political reasons, probably in the same way as it is, I’d imagine, in the US and many other countries. What prompted you initially to consider a different approach to health?

 TL: In college, I wanted to feel less depressed, tired, and anxious, so I searched online how to do that. There were antidepressants, but somehow I didn’t trust them, and also I didn’t want to talk to a doctor because I disliked social situations. People also recommended caring about diet, which I could do without talking to anyone, so I did that. I also remember wanting to have better skin, and people also recommended diet for that. It was through this research that I began to learn how toxic most food and most things in society are.

ROR: I think I heard you say, or read somewhere, that you were either writing, or considering writing, a science fiction novel. Will you still incorporate autofiction into your sci-fi novel? It’s interesting to imagine what that could be like. For some reason the scene in Inception where McConaughey is moving through the 4D space/time library of his daughter’s bedroom comes to mind. 

TL: Part of why I would want to write a sci-fi novel is to get away from autofiction, so maybe I would only include small details from my life, and save my life’s main details for further autofictional or nonfictional books. I don’t know yet. I’ve been interested in writing a science-fiction novel in the voice of, and from the perspective of, an advanced extra-terrestrial.

ROR: Have you read anything interesting, or have any thoughts, on how time might work?

TL: Glenn Borchardt, author of Infinite Universe Theory, argues that time is simply motion. He says time can’t “flow” because motion can’t flow. He says time doesn’t exist; rather, it occurs. He and others think that Einstein made a mistake when he objectified time into a dimension, possibly leading physicists into a century-plus-long Kuhnian crisis. Russian physicist Nikolai Kozyrev called the aether (a “sea” of undetectably small particles that people, until the twentieth century, believed filled every area of empty space) time, which I find fascinating and want to learn more about.

ROR: Knausgaard, who has written a sci-fi novel recently, is known for writing autofiction. Stylistically and in his approach to autofiction, the My Struggle books seem to me very different to your work. Have you read them and do you have any thoughts on his work? 

TL: I read and enjoyed like 40-100 pages of the first book of My Struggle. Knausgaard has said that he stopped trying after a certain number of pages—he stopped working on the writing and just published the first draft. I could tell where he stopped trying, which was around when I stopped reading. I would be more interested in reading his unedited writing if he was a friend or acquaintance or if he was an incel or was otherwise somehow severely dysfunctional and/or alienated from society.

ROR: We’re the same age, I think. I watched X-Files as a teenager and it definitely shaped my interest in aliens, abductions, and government secrets. Did you watch the X-Files? 

TL: I haven’t watched the X-Files, but I’ve heard it’s about aliens and government secret agents, topics which I’ve gotten very interested in in the past few years. I just searched Steven Greer’s amazing book, Hidden Truth, Forbidden Knowledge (2006), for “X files” and found this (about a press conference he organized in 2001 in which military, government, and corporate witnesses—whistle-blowers—disclosed things they knew about secret government projects): “The general manager of the National Press Club was stunned at the number of news people present. News networks were cancelling other programming and were heard saying, ‘This is the real X Files!'”

ROR: ‘This is the real X Files!’, is an interesting and amusing quote in many ways, thank you for finding that. I’ve always wanted to witness a UFO, and I wonder how I would react at the time, and then how it would make me feel after. How do you think seeing a UFO might impact you, at the time and then afterwards?

TL: Seeing a UFO would make me feel alert and focused and engaged. I can imagine a situation where I’m so depressed or upset about some mundane thing in my normal life that I would almost ignore the UFO, or feel bad about feeling so bad that I couldn’t even focus on a UFO, but hopefully that won’t happen. I might want to try to think something telepathically to the alien(s) inside the UFO—an unknown message that will depend on my mood and other things. I would hope that the UFO was not part of a CIA project that was going to hoax an abduction on me. Afterwards, I would write about it and feel glad to have it to write about and examine. I wouldn’t be too surprised because I’m already pretty convinced that humans and/or aliens have UFOs on Earth.

ROR: Do you discuss subjects like aliens with your parents? 

TL: I have before, but it’s not a regular topic of conversation. I’ve told them, or maybe just my mom, that I’ve read that secret U.S. government projects have hoaxed alien abductions for many decades—it’s called “stagecraft”—and that there may be a human plan to hoax an alien invasion. I want to ask them what they remember of what I’ve said.

ROR: The descriptions of times from Li’s childhood, the very not good hospital experiences being an example, were deeply moving to read in a way I hadn’t experienced with your writing previously. Was writing about this for Leave Society the first time you have written about your childhood? How did you feel writing it? 

TL: I actually wrote about the same experiences—from when I was a teenager—in Taipei too, my previous novel. I feel good writing about being severely depressed in the past, because it makes me more grateful for my present life.

ROR: I enjoyed Taipei but forgot about the sections on your childhood. I’ll look and enjoy reading them again with the perspective of having now read Leave Society. Do you think it’s likely you will write more about childhood, either possibly a whole book or a greater portion of a book?

TL: I do. I like writing about the same things from different angles in different books. I have an essay in an anthology called NDA that came out this month in which I write about my masturbation experiences as a child, which I don’t think I’ve written about before. Other things from childhood I’d like to write about: friends I had as a child, Nintendo and computer games I played as a child.

ROR: Thinking back to childhood friends feels interesting, and something I have used in my writing a little, and will continue to do in the future. My first games console was a SNES and I remember writing small books about the game F-Zero, focusing on what was going on between races. Do any games from this period stand out for you in a similar way?

TL: I like that you wrote small books about F-Zero. I remember F-Zero being colourful and fast. I had NES and SNES. SNES games I remember liking: SimCity and Final Fantasy II and III. As for NES, I liked Destiny of an Emperor, a strategy role-playing game set in around the year 200 in China. I liked a game where you were a UFO-like thing that moved from left to right, shooting things while being shot at. I don’t remember the name.

ROR: Your parent’s dog, Dudu, was a big presence in Leave Society for me, somewhat otherworldly and arguably the novel’s ‘breakout star’. I found it funny, but also at the same time profound and thought provoking, when she had that catatonic moment in the park. What would be your guess as to what was going on for Dudu in that moment? 

TL: She might have felt uncomfortable due to some bodily ache or pain. She’s a dog, so she couldn’t say, “My back hurts. I don’t want to walk anymore.” I’m happy you enjoyed Dudu’s presence in my novel.

ROR: That’s a very plausible explanation. All said, how is Du at the moment?

TL: She is doing well now. She’s turning 14 on November 22. I see her when I video call my parents.

ROR: That’s good to hear. Please wish Dudu a happy birthday from me, and thank you for answering these questions.

I will be republishing my 2022 interviews from Wales Arts Review here, each with new introductions as above.

There is also a film adaptation of SFAA that I forgot to mention I had seen perhaps ~60% of. I think, still not checking, it is directed by the same person who directed Taipei.

I’m working on a new series of interviews. Please comment and say who you would like me to interview in the future!

“Tell me what to talk about,” I said as we walked up the narrow, curved staircase towards our seats.

“Speak about the tour?” Connor replied, attaching the iPhone to a matte black gimbal. “Eastern Europe, double-decker trains, ultra?”

“You want me to talk about ultra?”

“Sure. Repeat that?” Connor said, the iPhone now directed towards me. 

“Which part?”

“All of it,” Connor replied, grinning.

I first became aware of Connor some years ago when Luis referred to a tetchy online exchange he had experienced with someone called ‘Connor Stone: English journalist living in Cardiff.’ It was minor, and Luis and I agreed that Connor seemed funny and cocky.

Connor and I met in person, a year or two later, at the childhood home of Dylan Thomas. I had been invited to read as part of a festival celebrating Thomas’ life, or death, or maybe life, death, and seemingly relentless afterlife - and Connor was there with his friend, Dom, who was also reading that evening. As we, the three of us, and also Amy, my wife, stood together in Thomas’s downstairs hallway, Connor joked that Dom was a terrible person once you get to know him; this made me laugh at the time, and then again, eventually, a long way down the line. Connor, a funny and cocky young man in person as well as online, wearing the tailored check suit that I would from that point onwards always picture him wearing whenever I thought of him, which was sometimes, and then as time went on, often.

Weeks, months, a period of eighteen months to two years, we began communicating more frequently, then, ultimately, daily, sometimes as early as dawn, Connor by now living in York, me still in Cardiff, and now on a train together, somewhere in the German countryside.  

Our train, or so it seemed to me, made a loud acceleration noise. I tried and failed to understand Connor as he spoke; something, I think, about our stopover in Munich. I walked up and then down the stairs between the train’s first and second floors for a fifth, maybe sixth, time, each new ‘take’ feeling both more and less wooden in my movement. Connor seemed to find my discomfort amusing, but I was okay with it either way, mainly unmoved, only slightly preoccupied with the notion of when or if I would relax, happy for now to be given directional instructions to follow.

Connor continued to speak, and I continued to not understand him, until we finished filming on the stairs and returned to our seats.  

Connor Stone: English documentarian travelling to Serbia.

Me: Cymro ghost on a train, somewhere in Germany, then later Serbia, with other countries in between.

As we took our seats, Connor passed me a small can of generic lager and a Naked bar that tasted really pretty good. As we had eaten nearly all of the nut bars, I, briefly and failing miserably, attempted to ‘make it last.’

“‘Despised present day Malick aesthetic’”, Connor said, looking back at footage on his iPhone, touching the screen and grinning.

“I love it,” I said. “Show me some money!”

“Jeremy Maguire: Malick cut”, Connor replied, touching his can against my can.

“Help me, Robert, help you, Connor,” I said to Connor.

“You, Robert, had me, Connor, at hello,” Connor said to me.

I caught the eyes of a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter sitting at the table opposite, both appearing to have been listening to us, for how long I have no idea, each seeming equally amused and puzzled.

Somewhere close to the French German border, the sun was setting. Preoccupied, nervous about reading from my book for the first time in at least eighteen months, increasingly stressed about my new novel, money, health, other-

“Will we survive this tour,” I said.

“The tour never ends, Robert,” Connor replied, holding the iPhone at hip height, tilting it upwards towards the mother and daughter, both now apparently focused on their Kindles.

The journey continued. I spoke about a variety of topics relating to my book, answering Connor’s questions fairly naturally before bringing the conversation to a halt as I struggled to recall the reason I had previously given for the two inch scar on my forehead, maybe eight weeks old, the swelling gone but the jagged creek still a deep red.

“Tour scar,” I said. “Committing to the aesthetic.”

“We can say…,” Connor replied, opening a can and handing it to me before opening one himself. “Tell me how you got that scar.”

I looked over at the mother and daughter opposite us, both doing the ‘concentrating on my Kindle’ facial expression, their bodies frozen in mannequin poses, eyebrows crinkled, ears pricked on high alert.

“Don’t worry too much about telling the truth,” Connor continued, carefully placing two fingers on the iPhone screen, pinching them together, expanding them out again, aiming towards me, beyond me, both.

“Behind you,” Connor continued, “Golden Hour is here.”

**

During a three hour changeover in Munich we queued to buy some beers at a sparse, strip-lit newsagent inside the station; I can’t recall the name of the lager I picked out, but the raised illustration of a mischievous, moderately aggressively imperial eagle on the blue and yellow cans felt appealing to me at the time.

The lighting seemed excessively bright, and I asked whether we should buy some water. Connor nodded and walked back over to the drinks aisle as I kept our place in the line until he returned with a four pack of what appeared to be two litre bottles of water. I felt grateful, tired, other-

**

Inside the two-person sleeper cabin, the train loudly, slowly pulling out of Munich station, Connor opened his MacBook and played an Action Bronson track he had mentioned to me some weeks ago (‘doing bumps’, Elaine Benes dancing (making me think of Laura), something to do with grand theft auto), then the opening four tracks from Watch The Throne (big brother and little brother hard at work, tension?, ultras), then more music that I can’t recall.

As the music played, the train briefly slowing down before building the acceleration again, I looked out of the window as we passed through what appeared to be, in the brief glimpse that I had, an abandoned and unlit station. Dark outside, sensorially a familiar time of the night maybe, I wondered about cocaine in Belgrade, feeling a degree of, I think, excitement or interest in the prospect.

Coke will help…, I thought, …the documentary, hahahaha-

The iPhone no longer filming, I think(?), and a pressing, overbearing desire to sober up, I began to talk, for the first time with Connor, about how for the past twelve months I had been using cocaine moderately frequently, enjoying and, to my mind, seemingly benefiting from this. Connor, in response, was keen to tell me his opinions on this explosive revelation, and I, in turn, was ecstatic to receive them.

This would be good on the doc, I thought.

I got up from the bed, stepped out of the cabin, and walked towards the toilet. A few doors down, the ticket inspector had the door to his cabin open. Lying on his bed, still in uniform and eating from a pack of German Pringles, our eyes met briefly before he continued to push his hand deeper inside the Pringles tube, at which point I noticed that there were three different-coloured, half eaten tubes on the floor by his bed. I put my head down and continued towards the toilet, feeling a degree of surprise that the corridor floor appeared to be carpeted in a way that felt so remarkably and incongruously luxurious.

Feel the bounce, I thought. Now please stay tuned for more Taboo Pringles Tales-

I returned from the toilet and found Connor transferring footage from the iPhone onto his laptop.

“The conductor said he can get us some coke,” I said.

Connor laughed and turned his laptop to show me a clip of some footage from Paris.

“We can say-,” Connor said.

“Thank you for serving me so hard just now,” I replied. “The footage, it all looks so beautiful.”

The heating in the cabin seemed to turn off, a welcome and timely relief. Drinking water instead of cans, we discussed American Honey, Don Jon, Cape Fear, Song to Song, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and, I believe, the filming of Justice League.

I contemplated saying Goodnight, Connor in Bale Batman-voice, then in Hardy Bane-voice, but instead said it in my normal voice. Connor said Goodnight, Robert, in his normal voice, typing a message to Holly as I climbed the bunk ladder and got into bed underneath the rough, heavy blanket, and underneath that a thin white sheet.

I closed my eyes and thought of nothing, then fell asleep and dreamt of nothing.

**

We both seemed to wake up at the same time, it soon becoming apparent that as we slept the train had stopped and then remained stationary for a prolonged, somewhat unknowable period of time. I thought about the messages we had been receiving, with increasing regularity, from Dušan, the co-founder of the Serbian publishing house, and how he seemed so excited about my arrival, disbelieving almost that I was making the journey via train.

As Connor and I ate a slice of toast each, I detached the straw from the side of a small carton of orange juice, pierced the silver foil circle and sipped the drink until it was finished.

We spent the rest of the journey discussing a Ben Lerner-Tao Lin (or possibly Tao Lin-Ben Lerner) interview from 2016, Robert Popper’s Timewaster Letters, Laura, Celyn, Michael Mann’s ‘digital era’, Sooty and Sweep (and Sue), Fitzgerald’s Pat Hobby stories, art level, ultra, other-

**

Budapest to Belgrade, early evening and already pitch-black outside, I sat on the compartment floor, surrounded by 300ml bottles of lager, somehow neither of us remotely drunk, and posed for a photo in what felt like a momentous, triumphant moment.

I am alive, I thought. ‘Thank God’-

We had paid two bribes on the journey, one to the Hungarian ticket collector, then another to his Serbian equivalent as we crossed the border. The result of this was that our ‘cheap fare’ had come in at a couple of Euros more than a legitimate ticket. I thought about this as I handed over some money to the barman on the food and beverage carriage; he looked at the money and said thank you, then waited, silently and expressionlessly, for me to take the drinks and Serbian Pringles.

I thanked the barman, looked over towards Connor, considered the people waiting for us in Belgrade, the blackness beyond the window, other ideas, other moments-

**

backstreet, 127 hours later

We travelled to Kikinda, a city maybe two hours outside of Belgrade, for a reading in an attic room of the public library, an interview with local television, food at a restaurant, drinks at a bar. Everything had gone smoothly with the reading and the interview. I felt comfortable, happily on autopilot walking the uniform streets that connected us from one place to the next, quiet, wide, and dark, from the carpark to the library to the restaurant, and then from the restaurant to the outdoor carpark that was framed on all sides by bars, artist studios, and, I think, rehearsal spaces and a juice bar called Fruity Republic. Along the way, there were solo photos and group photos, and as we walked through a subway and up towards a small Irish pub, a street orchestra that played the Family Of The Year song Hero from the Richard Linklater film Boyhood and also the speakers inside Miloje’s car.

Standing near the bar in the Irish pub, I spoke to Katrina, Zvonimir, Christian, who I had met at the reading that night, and Dano, who I had met at an earlier reading in another town but lived and worked in Kikinda.

I walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. The graffiti on the wall above the toilet was mostly written in English and I thought of the student from Belgrade University who asked several questions, the final one being How do you know what to remember?, and I couldn’t recall the answer I gave, only that on my way out of the Q&A I was asked in Serbian for directions to the student advice centre, my response being to look at Matea and, calmly grinning, wait for her to answer on my behalf. 

On the return journey to Belgrade, and at the end of an hour-long diversion to drop Vladimir off at his apartment, now sitting in the back seat of Miloje’s Serbian Peugeot 205, I watched as Dušan and Miloje unpacked some books from the boot and walked towards the large cast iron gates at the front of the building, maybe five stories high, rectangular, part brutalist, part gothic, its nuances lit remarkably well by the practically inadequate street lighting.

“I didn’t expect his place to look like this,” I said to Connor. “What time is it?”

I turned and looked ahead towards the motorway, watching as one car after another hurtled past, each one briefly illuminating the darkness.

“Robert,” Connor said. “There is a Range Rover parked at the traffic light across the road, behind us, half a block down. A man has just got out of the passenger side, walked round to the boot, pulled out… and… is now holding-”

I watched as Miloje helped Dušan with the last of the books before then walking back towards the car. I looked towards the motorway and waited for some cars to pass by, imagining Tron bikes, specifically the neon ‘trails’ they left behind them, trying to recall how they sounded, or whether they made any noise at all.  

“Robert, the man, he is holding in his hands…” Connor said. “He is holding an automatic rifle.”

I watched as Miloje opened the car door, sat down on the sunken foam of the driver’s seat and fiddled with his keys, dropping them in the footwell, then seemingly struggle to place them in the ignition.

“We can s-” Connor said.

Total silence, or so it seemed, at maybe 2:45AM - specific time unimportant, a backstreet somewhere outside Belgrade. A moment of calm feelings, reflections, cigars after dinner, fifty students: so focused in their questions, the one who looked like Djokovic, the one who looked like Audrina, Siniša talking about two hour commutes listening to Exodus at maximum volume, more TV appearances, a real-deal Neo Nazi, Maria, no food, no sleep, only water, Matea my translator, Zvonimir, Katja, Dano, Miloje’s cat, Miloje’s dog, Miloje’s life and times, the alchemy and precision of All of the Lights: in its entirety but particularly the orchestral interlude bookending with the maximal, densely layered outro, and now the Balkan Boy holding an automatic rifle in the space behind us. What would I see if I turned around? Would he be aiming towards us, someone else, himself, the ground? Or maybe just up at the sky, kind of aimlessly, kind of not.

I won a short fiction prize for this non-fiction piece.

A ‘sequel’ to this piece based on my recent (October, 2022) visit to Podgorica, Montenegro will follow shortly.

Some things same, many things different.

Earning less than minimum wage, often in dark, wild weather, I was enjoying the work and understanding myself like never before.

My boss was a bully, but I didn’t fear him or the GPS trackers he put in our backpacks. There was less and less to fear. Really there was nothing at all.

The walking job was great for as long as it lasted.

As I walked, I listened to the Other PPL Podcast, a podcast where Brad Listi, an author, interviews other authors. As an author of a short fiction collection, then starting work on a novel, it was interesting to hear how other people were doing things.

I moved back and forth through the years of Brad’s life as I picked which episodes to listen to each day. For many years Brad’s monologues were about his day-to-day life, his family, his youth, but at a certain point onwards became more focused on the politics of the day.

Brad monologuing about politics was too much at times. But it was his podcast, and he could do what he wanted.

I usually listened to two Other PPL episodes per shift.

The Sam Pink episode made me laugh so much as the dawn sun rose again. Later that same morning, I listened to the Giancarlo DiTrapano episode as I walked up and down snow-covered roads, drenched in sweat, trying to progress my mentality, and my life, in the proper direction.

I remember the day I listened to Giancarlo’s episode was the day my backpack was so heavy I couldn’t stop myself falling backwards, then sideways, and then, finally, forwards, as I slid down an icy hill, leaving behind me tracks of blood from my head, knees and hands.

Leaking blood, I laughed to myself as I kept listening, kept on delivering.

Gian’s candour, toughness, and charisma was impossible to resist as he continued talking to Brad. True big brother energy, and, like many before me, I fell in love.

The late Giancarlo DiTrapano was the founder and editor of Tyrant Books. Giancarlo’s independently minded vision for Tyrant never wavered, the results often spectacular in what is, at times, a predominantly risk-averse industry.

Even before listening to Gian’s Other PPL episode, I read Tyrant Books books, in the main, because they were Tyrant Books.

Gian’s taste always felt impeccable to me, a new Tyrant release feeling part of the culture, deeper considered, shooting for something realer than the books I was seeing published elsewhere.

What Purpose Did I Serve In Your Life by Marie Calloway, The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan, and Liveblog by Megan Boyle are all Tyrant books I would recommend without reservation The Sarah Book especially being a book that would sit comfortably in any company, historically, and to me at least, represents the pinnacle of Tyrant’s output.

Gian’s refusal to assimilate Tyrant, and by extension himself, into mainstream publishing, striving only for excellence at any cost, was admirable and exciting. Not everyone appreciated Gian’s style, his demeanour, his choices. Even better, or so it felt to me.

The reasons I didn’t get in touch with Gian immediately after listening to the podcast, I think, came down to insecurity, a developing but still incomplete comprehension of how I struggled to manage expectations from male relationships, and a more general shyness and fear of rejection on my part.

But, later, we did begin to interact.

Gian and I both held a limitless affection for Cable Guy, the 1997 Ben Stiller film starring Jim Carey, a commercial and critical disaster on release. Pauline Kael said ‘trust your opinion’ and I, like Gian, would die defending this film, a cult-classic to some these days, but one we had both been down with since day one.

I first watched Cable Guy in the cinema on its release, one of my older brothers, Tig, sitting next to me, eighteen years my senior. Cable Guy shocked me with its perfection, comic timing, layers of referencing, meta narratives, all wrapped up in Jim Carrey’s most aggressive, felt performance.

I, the child, was in tears it was so good.

To this day I can recite much of the film verbatim, despite not having seen it from beginning to end for at least a decade, maybe fifteen years or more.

The reason I focus on The Cable Guy now, here, like this, I don’t know.

Does there need to be a reason? Style over plot, always, as Gian said, and I agreed. 

I write for myself, the action feeling automatic to me, a positive habit, or, yes, an addiction, one I can indulge and finesse. I feel happy when strangers email to say they have enjoyed my work, but I do it for self. Self-truth, self-worth. Own boss, own rules, own love.

Soon after my novel Hello Friend We Missed You won The Guardian’s Not the Booker prize in October of 2020, I messaged Gian to tell him, half-jokingly, that the US rights were still available. There were two other North American publishers who were very interested, but confusion regarding an admin error relating to its Amazon US listing ultimately proving insurmountable for them.

Gian immediately asked me to send him the manuscript. He read it, told me the situation was complicated, things were crazy, he was setting up a new publisher and we’d talk again then.

The only occasion we spoke on the phone seemed innocuous at the time.

It felt a little like we were testing the ground for something else, and maybe I was too reserved, not wanting to show my hand too much.

Gian did most of the talking and told me to write my non-fiction alongside my new novel. I already had thoughts on this, but it was interesting to hear his perspective. Gian told me to take liberties along the way, the truth being the art not the reality. As I listened, I stared, smiling, at a photo of Gian holding a knife.

Beyond Hello Friend, I wanted Gian to read an account of an incident I had experienced, a piece I held the highest ambitions for, and felt sure could appeal to his taste. I wrote a post-it-note that said: Send The Plagiarism to Gian. I didn’t send it. I didn’t know it then, but time ran out too soon.

The Plagiarism, all 5000 words, took years to write, the subject matter years to process. Gian’s insight on it would have been high value, undoubtedly. But I’ve done the work, walked the miles, my trust in the vision, in the piece, was and is clear to me.

Chelsea Hodson, whose class at Bennington College I happened to be taking just before Gian passed away, often spoke of Gian’s impeccable taste. Chelsea would know. Her and Gian were close, teaching together at Mors Tua Vita Mea, their writing workshop at Gian’s villa in Italy.

Villa DiTrapano always seemed to loom large in my mind. I’d been living a sober life for nearly three years when Gian passed away, but always harboured fantasies of indulging myself at the villa, one of only two or three quote unquote ‘acceptable reasons’ for breaking sobriety that I held onto - a form of control on my part, as always. One less reason now. Maybe one day no reasons at all.

Gian and I shared a love of Axl Rose but we never got into it. Gian did introduce me to Stevie Nicks and everything about her seemed immediately correct to me somehow. The same way Axl does, _____ does, some other people do.

I hadn’t used Twitter in a long time. Gian, on the other hand, felt like a master, a brilliantly harsh, funny smack-talker but able to give the flowers too. No one was safe. Agents, other publishers, mainstream media, even Tyrant authors.

Gian asked me to explain my final tweet from 2018, I will tweet again, o. Maybe it won’t be too long now until I tweet again and maybe not too long after that until I explain.

My friend Connor and I were referring to Gian as The Great One. Then one morning Connor messaged me to say that he thought Gian might be dead. This was just a feeling Connor had, inexplicable but compelling. His story to tell, not mine.

An hour after Connor’s message there were some tweets circulating. By the evening, it seemed to be confirmed. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Some personal dreams were ended, I knew that. The world would inevitably have fewer good books in it in the future too.

For around a day I held onto the notion that it could be a prank. To me, faking your own death on Twitter feeling a very Gian-seeming thing to attempt. Not this time though.

A son, a friend, a husband and so much more beyond that had died.

Being in the company, albeit virtually, of someone so confident, effortlessly themselves – it’s not nothing.

When I begin to consider how I will put Gian into my work, I know it’s only my perception of him, also, more accurately or importantly – my projection. Really, of course, it might not be Gian at all, it will be who, and what, he was for me.

I didn’t find my tribe until I was in my thirties. And when I found them, I realised it wasn’t a tribe at all. More a handful of people, the common denominator between us being that we didn’t have, and weren’t suited to, the groupthink and groupfeel that seemed so right to so many.

For such a long time, since I was a teenager and became conscious of such things, I had often felt I had no choice but to seek people to connect with.

By the time I realised I didn’t need to do this, didn’t need people in that way, I realised I had indeed found people. I didn’t need them, they didn’t need me, and we could all be comfortable like that. I didn’t need Gian in my life, and I certainly didn’t place any expectations on what our relationship could be. Simply to be somewhat in each other’s orbits was enough.

I recently signed the contract for the Italian translation of Hello Friend We Missed You. What will I do when I’m in Rome? Drink water, drink espresso, eat at Ecru, Ma va, Col Cavolo, make some notes for my new novel – title: No Child Left Behind, and maybe then pause for a moment and think of Villa DiTrapano and Gian once again.

From time to time, it remains strange to me that Gian has died.

But equally it feels like he’s not dead at all, just existing differently, forever in his work, energy, contribution, and purpose. All I can do, and all I will do, is keep delivering for myself, for Gian, and for anyone who’s the same.

You can listen to the original BBC Radio4 broadcast of this essay here.

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I didn’t know for so long. The weather outside was worse than the storm that shut everything down a few days earlier. Wild outside these cabin walls. Always seemed so. I looked at my watch. 10PM my time, different in Sedona. Chelsea and I talked.

‘Will the speaker feel justice by the end?’

‘I’m not sure. Somehow, yes. If it’s possible. If I decide.’

Chelsea said this was an opportunity to flip the genre expectation. I nodded and grinned, thinking about what Chelsea said then and earlier, then remembering something Laura said, something Connor said, something, many things, the plagiarist said.

We talked a little bit about Sam, Wendy, a couple of other people. Lili’s Bennington podcast came up. Theo. Also Jordan, I believe.

‘What do you want this essay to really be about?’

I hadn’t known for so long.

12AM my time, was starting to know.

It was an essay, it was war, it was whatever I wanted.

Wild weather outside for the rest of the night.

***

At the time, something very specific in mind. Feeling like this was the move, I asked people to keep the plagiarism to themselves. Laura was open. Kit favoured confrontation. Sister Neave spoke for silence. I agreed with Neave, albeit somewhat differently motivated. Connor listened and commented. Leigh said be careful. Time passed. Laura waited.

I did not live with the plagiarism well.

Some days, all day.

Other days, at the worst times, a split-second and I was back in the horror hours. The energy vampire controlling me. I didn’t need the company. Distant, difficult. Maybe just me, their father. How could they know why? Ups and downs. Many downs. I always apologised later though. That was something at least.

Gradually I wrote the situation in a Word doc.

What scared me initially was the possibility the plagiarist would win. That his book could do something. It wasn’t out of the question. New editions, translations, adaptations. This was how it usually went when you heard of such things. I felt sick.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen thousand words, maybe fourteen at longest. Never read correctly. Corny. Bitter and unwieldly, just like these pieces often seem. Not how I’d want to settle the matter. Worse, I came over every bit as insane and humourless as the plagiarist would have gamed out and banked on.

And then my life changed.

I barely spoke of the plagiarism.

Rarely thought.

Yet always there. Waiting. Lurking.

I couldn’t look at the plagiarist’s Goodreads page. What was I so scared of?

Winning awards, selling thousands, translations, I still found myself periodically returning to the doc. The words didn’t feel good to read. Little desire to remember, commit to trawling my memory for juicy new details or, by now entirely obvious, retrospective signs that the plagiarism had embedded itself in my psyche, spectre-form, for so long.

My life, as it had become, had been hard won. Walk away. Take the win.

And yet, in the end, I knew then and know now that I have to speak. Still. The stealthmare won’t stop until I say it. 

I revised the doc again.

Gian said send it. I waited to send, and then he was gone.

Witnessed Sam do his thing, experience freedom flow. Some similarities, some differences. It was off his chest, or that’s how it seemed from my remove. I shouldn’t have left my situation to fester so long. Playing a game with a sneakweasel who would never back down. Levels. Skill sets. I was a novelist, the plagiarist something else altogether.

Time had passed. The feeling wasn’t the same, but I worked on the essay some more.

Twelve thousand words down to eight. Then seven. Not editing so much to find the precision, merely removing brutal dunks on a man who by this point was a stranger longer than we’d been friends.

What was the point?

I’d won. A war fought with self. A different person. Big Tig said that I was sounding a lot more conservative. True, I kept talking about discipline, freedom and hard work in interviews. I understood where Tig was coming from. Really, I’d never felt less political. Maybe. Some things changed, some still the same. Pride demanding a violent revenge. Stubborn. Still afraid. Addicted to the affront, the hurt.  

Why not deal with it privately. Why write-

The plagiarist, a neighbour, once a friend, sold his house and left the city the month before his book was published. Incredible to know. One of many incredible to knows. Accumulative, and in context, equally a threat to my sanity and too funny to believe. Details too rich to leave and do nothing with.

The plagiarist was gone. Still, difficult to imagine I’d never see his face again.

Better for us all if this is done.

I’d worked with Chelsea previously, so we said let’s go.

***

The dawn of a dynamic fresh and tasty hell. I decided to read the plagiarist’s book in the days after the launch out of politeness and respect to our friendship.

A friendship that had seen better days, yes. But still.

 I knew if I didn’t read the novel in the first week or so, motivation would be a struggle. From the plagiarist’s mouth, from one of two others as well, the book had been passed on by all the usual places. Not that this had to mean anything. But it probably meant something.

When I first realized what the plagiarist had done, and the extent to which he’d done it, my initial reaction was amusement. Rather, I desired amusement. Aloof. At this point, a defence mechanism. Thirty-year vintage.

Prior to the launch, the plagiarist had told me that his next book after this one would be much better. Incredible honesty. Such candour. The plagiarist, always striving, forever grafting. He told me to remember his words, not to judge this one too much. Maybe don’t even bother to read. Strangest flex. But sure, okay.

 The plagiarist spoke this at Coffee1. Jumpy, tripping over words. Then for the first time, having been friends for two or three years, mere weeks before his launch, he offered me freelance copywriting work. Incredible friendship flex. I owe you, man!

I read the novel on Sunday, or perhaps Monday. Laura told me to not stay up too late. I was working the next morning at 5, which meant leaving the house at 4:30. Early nights and early rises. 

The day of the launch had been something.

Connor was staying at my house for two nights. The plagiarist, taken aback, questioned this as he began messaging Connor. Connor, commenting on a photo of me drinking water from a large NutriBullet cup, turned his attention back to his phone.

He is typing, stopped typing, is typing, stopped typing, is typing, and has stopped typing again, Connor said as the plagiarist finally messaged, inviting me, via Connor, to join them at Lo Selso before the launch.

The plagiarist, plagiarist’s wife, a couple of Christians, Connor and me.

The plagiarist, jittery again, delivered a rambling anecdote both Connor and I had heard before. Separate occasions but the plagiarist coming off book on both, waffle words about his mean father. This latest version seemed less impressive, lacking conviction. A deranged, mawkish play for sympathy. The Story of He: Flexes of a Sneakthief.

Later, at the launch, the plagiarist had mystifyingly, or so it felt to me, read, as he himself referred to it, an edited version of the novel’s opening chapter. Also strange was his continued skittishness as the launch plodded on into the live bands, or as was emphasized by him, several times, ‘the interesting bit of the evening.’ Sure.

 Back at home, reading, touching page, I felt sick. I knew what I was reading, I didn’t need anyone else to tell me – not that they didn’t anyway; offered to me, unsolicited, by various people over the following days, there was a clear aping of the style from my short fiction collection, All The Places We Lived, published a couple of years earlier.

Not plagiarism, I understand that.

But not nothing either.

Continuing further into the novel, the mimicry of my style dissolved. Irritated and unsettled, I felt relief still. Continuing on, strange things again. Plot points, direct lifts, miniscule adjustments to character names or settings and descriptions. I wrote them down, dozens of examples; an arbitrary seeming spread across the novel - almost as if they had been dropped in during a panicky draft edit. I felt nothing. Something. Numb bewilderment; is that what it was?

Ripped the style. Gave up. Plagiarized. Gave up. A total shitshow of a novel.

I felt like I was going crazy.

But, two weeks of sobriety in the bank, I at least had time to think. How lucky for me.

Time passed. No contact from the plagiarist since the launch. I’d heard about him though. Three or four weeks later, the plagiarist purchased a piece from a close friend of mine’s recent collection. The plagiarist wasn’t friends with Jackson, and not once up to that point expressed any interest in his work. Quite the sudden and well-timed turn around. Four thousand, five thousand, six thousand. How much is silence? How much will it cost. Incredible to know.

Enough suddenly felt like enough.

The last thing I wanted was to speak openly and risk killing my friend’s sale. There had to be a release, something I could do. I tweeted that my book had been plagiarised, that I had a cross referenced file, that I forgave the plagiarist - whoever that might be.

The intention wasn’t to expose the plagiarist. No clues given to who the thief was. Fine, whatever. But the tweet existed in a kind of safe middle space, no follow up. I didn’t want a conflict. No reckoning. Only a record that needed marking.  

In a quote unquote shocking turn of events, later that evening the plagiarist messaged me. A weak, wallpaper-words football message. Totally out of character and contextless.

The plagiarist messaged Connor, now de facto man in the middle, minutes later. See above. Incredible to know, necessary to document.

I saw the move from the jump. There would be no reply from me to the plagiarist’s message. No replies to any of his messages again. Unreal to think. Unreal to do.

But the plagiarist saw the play and responded with his own move. Steady streams. Banal, generic, everyday manoeuvres. Never mentioning the plagiarism tweet now pinned to the top of my profile. Never mentioning his book. Always checking in with Connor afterwards, mentioning me in passing, time after time after time after time after time after time.

The plagiarist knew how to manoeuvre. Working weird, sliming his way through life.

If I cared - and despite not wanting to, I evidently, deeply, painfully did - I was stuck.

***

I hadn’t owned a phone for some time. Sitting on the toilet at work, I downloaded WhatsApp to my new phone and logged on for the first time in several months. The plagiarist messaged within twenty minutes.

Something something selvedge denim, something something something what’s new?

I had to hand it to the plagiarist, his commitment to the bit was relentless. A most formidable persistency flex. Probably why he had a career outside of writing and I was cutting corners, shredding awkward work, and hiding in toilets at ten AM.

At some point, before that morning, it could have been days, weeks or months, I realized something. The plagiarism had been a clear decision. The plagiarist saw the opportunity to take my work, pain, life, whatever. Recycle it into something he perceived as more commercial. Risk versus reward. Knowing what he was doing was wrong but doing it anyway - and still refusing to take responsibility, even now.

Even now that his novel had sunk without a trace.

No sales. No exposure. No clout.

Still, I was another client to be steamrolled, gaslit into forgetting whatever I might have been angry about. A guileless war of attrition that was on some levels bizarrely admirable and amusing to me.

Until, reliably, it wasn’t.

After re-reading the first line of his message over and over, I resisted the urge to drop my phone into the toilet, and instead walked downstairs to the office Starbucks. No response to the WhatsApp. Or the Messenger. Any. None. No.

The first final contact came. The plagiarist knew I didn’t want to talk to him, had ignored him for months, so liking a photo of my daughter on Instagram felt bogus and sinister to me, unmistakably a provocation. Recognising the change in tactics, I had to hand it to him. But I wasn’t amused. Finding myself at what, to me, felt like dangerously close to the edge, I had to work hard to stay in control. Prison wasn’t a joke in my family.

I was suffering. I wasn’t successful, nothing in my life had changed yet. There’s always context. The suffering, to me, in my life, at that moment was something else, something real. My context is me.

Back there again, all the pain.

I was thinking about the plagiarism, the plagiarist, all the time. How the plagiarist had tried to steal my life, my graft, for his gain - and all for his own flimsy ambitions.

A nightly walk, around nine, on the pavement outside the Robin Hood. The front door was open, a direct line to the garden at the rear. I felt dizzy. Inexplicable sensations of hearing the taste of lager, tasting the smell of cocaine. Momentarily, standing upright was difficult.

Sobriety was sticking, no problems.

But I didn’t need this.

***

The first time I met the plagiarist, the false first time.

The first time I met Connor, a real one.

A reading event at Dylan Thomas’ childhood home. Connor, grinning, said that the plagiarist was a terrible person and I’d regret meeting him. Thank you, Connor. Memories to cherish!

After Dylan’s house, Connor drove the three of us back to town. The plagiarist and I went out, Connor had a flight to catch early the next morning. The plagiarist appeared very popular and known. He asked a lot of questions, seemed keen to learn about me. I cringed at some of his opinions, but it felt comforting talking with someone else who’d eaten microwave pizza as a child.

We, the plagiarist and I, organized a couple of reading nights of our own. Soon weary of being treated like his employee, and to his obvious irritation, I said enough. The plagiarist didn’t like losing momentum. He’d worked hard to get where he was professionally. Perhaps understandable then that he cared about things like this, but I found it bizarre that the end of our, or really - his, reading nights was so embarrassing for him.

Theatre Bar, a couple of months later.

Feeling like too many readings and not enough reading.

I showed up with Felix and we walked to our seats with Blue Moons, a payday drink. I can’t recall if I got his or he got mine. Either way, one of us had the money that night. The launch was for Jack and Carrie, a surf noir novel and short story collection. The plagiarist was late for his reading, a short story that was, apparently, going to form the basis of his new novel. He arrived, started reading and-

Bro-

I know-

Felix and I left and walked up through town. The plagiarist had read with a cadence and style that was, to all who watched and listened, not his own; I wasn’t doing the heavy lifting on our nights anymore, but evidently that wasn’t to say he couldn’t use me in other ways.

Laura said it was weird and I should be careful around the plagiarist from now on. I said it was fine, agreed I would be careful in future. This didn’t need to be anything. Part of the problem of overreacting, and being out of control at times, was that I didn’t react enough when other situations merited a stronger response. A kind of wrongheaded, guiltily inverse compensation. Something or other. Still doing the work, walking the miles on it.

Truth. I should have said something then.

The plagiarist would have flipped. Known.

I’d witnessed him at work. Been complicit in my silence, even curious or amused on occasion. That’s on me. I didn’t want to lose him as a friend at that point - I wasn’t even sure you could do that. No overreaction. No reaction at all. I soon forgot. The sneakrat would not forget such weakness.

***

The first time I met the plagiarist. The real first time. Standing on the wet, dirty Borders laminate, nodding and grinning as two men stood before a small crowd, the bedraggled man unpacking a box of new books while the other man downed red wine from a plastic glass. Felix was next to me, and we listened as the author began a preamble to his reading, something something Borges, talking and talking and talking.

During the interval, Felix and I discussed an award he had been shortlisted for. I hadn’t entered, or even been aware of the award, but still felt competitive. Felix worked hard, I knew I’d need to work as hard and then harder still. A few people at the reading knew of Felix, his name was being spoken a lot in that moment.

A man appeared and stood in between us, his attention on Felix, my presence not acknowledged. The man fixed his gaze on Felix, fake-laughed, fake-questioned. I knew who. Not that I felt any less small, but some friends and I had been lampooning a recently published short story of his regularly over the previous few days. A derivative grab at a style. Early consistency flex. Incredible to remember.

A shot of adrenalin as he who would become the plagiarist continued to ignore me, the price tag hanging off his All Saints jacket making me blush for some reason. Wild Borders moments.  

The plagiarist continued to apply laser focus onto Felix. I stood and grinned in his shadow. Barely concealing his indifference as Felix opened up the moment to introduce me, the plagiarist didn’t know who I was and didn’t care much to know either. Fine. No love. No problem. It just wasn’t my time yet!

The real first time we met. Finally recalled.

A year of sobriety and all I got was this lousy recollection.

***

Six months before the plagiarism.

Connor and Celyn, now living in northern England, were staying nearby for a private Burial gig later in the week. Celyn was at dinner with a friend, Tess, Lane’s stepsister. Connor had arranged to meet him, the future-plagiarist, at St. Cannas. I initially turned down Connor’s invitation to join, knowing that we were meeting the next morning to discuss his plans for ULTRA:, the documentary he was making; I didn’t want to discuss the doc in the plagiarist’s company - it felt grimly possible that the plagiarist might try and bludgeon his way to involvement - but figured this was probably Connor’s feeling too; it was. No problem.

I approached Connor and the plagiarist in the pub, the pair of them sitting either side of an upcycled barrel. Their conversation ended abruptly. A strained two hours followed.

The next morning, over espresso at Brød, Connor confirmed it. They had been discussing the plagiarist’s impending new book. Having finally secured a publisher the previous week, the plagiarist told Connor that he was viewing writing differently now. Time to reconsider. His business was growing, where the focus needed to be. Maybe another book later. Maybe not. Writing for fun. He wanted that excitement back. Nothing serious. Writing wasn’t serious, not for the plagiarist. In his opinion, his punchily honest boy made good take, realistically no one should be too serious about their writing. Groundwork flex. Respect it!

A sidebar. On the street outside St Cannas the previous evening, the plagiarist revealed for the first time that he was putting his house on the market.

Soon, we’d no longer be neighbours.

***

Time had passed, we hadn’t spoken. After failing in his provocation of liking a photo of my daughter, I thought it might be over. But there was more. I was about to be treated to the exemplar of the plagiarist’s relentless grind.

What’s up, hope you’re good, I’ve got a spare tick–

The plagiarist - who it would seem still hadn’t seen the pinned plagiarism tweet, let alone felt the urge to ask me about it - wanted to reconnect. Month after month after month of refusing to respond to him. There was no quit in him.

Had I just been too busy to reply? Who could say? Certainly not the plagiarist.

Maybe I was crazy. Perhaps it had all been in my head. The plagiarist’s book was nothing like mine. His synchronized messages to me and Connor coincidental, maybe even a figment. That time he told Connor he was ripping off a Thom Lien story was… actually what was that? A rare moment of honesty, or perhaps a catastrophic admission. It matters little. A professional life built on following trends, taking and rearranging words, selling a narrative. No shame, no guile, no mercy. The plagiarist had worked hard and done well for himself.

As I was to discover further down the line, I was probably best suited to being the heel in Literary Wales. Smarter schools, higher ideas, success. Villain territory.

And wasn’t it refreshing to see it happen this way around? The plagiarist was simply doing what anyone should. Take from the rich. Rob them blind. I had made the situation easier for him by telling friends and acquaintances to not say anything, either publicly or privately. To never confirm the problem if the plagiarist asked – which, of course, he didn’t. Not directly. By never asking anyone, he would never have to face it. I got that. 

But from my perspective, attempting to deny the plagiarist a right to reply, and frustrate him into admitting to me what he had done, simply allowed him to press ahead as if nothing had happened. Some strategy.

Christian, professionally and personally connected to the plagiarist, spoke it in a tweet a week after the launch: All The Places We Lived should be considered part of a contemporary canon for ‘most influential Welsh cultural output’. Thank you, Christian – means a lot!

I bumped into Christian several times over the months that followed, the tension unbearable and hilarious, forever unaddressed. Rather than appreciating his tweet, I resented him for not speaking to me about the obvious problem. Maybe fair, maybe not. I would have been a man and said it myself, but I figured I couldn’t bring it up in case Christian took it back to the plagiarist and polluted my silence. I don’t know if he would have. Still, we chose. Christian went one way, in more ways than one, while I went another.

If it was hard for me to comprehend how the plagiarist thought he could be so flagrant without repercussion, it shouldn’t have been. I thought back to earlier in our friendship. The plagiarist told me how before university exams he would sit at the front of the bus and hustle, work anyone he could find for crib notes like a latter day Zack Morris.

Joe Rogan Huh sound.

I flinched when he said it.

Right.

Didn’t know self.

Huh, okay.

Couldn’t face the conflict.

Okay.

Remembered much later, eventually grasped it.

That’s right, man, you got it. You understood that shit.

The plagiarist wasn’t used to hearing no. He knew how to work, keep going, get things done. Belligerence flex. Determination flex. No need to get away undetected, only unconfronted.

No matter that I’d dropped off his radar for months. The plagiarist could forgive, forget, all in the name of keeping himself moving forwards. Keep messaging. All mediums. Only a matter of time before I’d cave.

I knew the plagiarist’s entire routine by now. Engagement was an invitation to let him work his grift. All I could do, as far as I could see in that moment, was keep on ignoring him and hope he’d eventually stop.

Whatever it was I thought I was doing, it wasn’t working. He would stop. Start again. Arbitrary times. Wild times. Somehow I was under his control, seemingly at his mercy.

Hindsight, ridiculous.

The moment, nightmarish.

Maybe seven months before I read the plagiarist’s book, I found myself under nuclear lights in the waiting room at Heath A&E, a jagged split on my forehead; tasting blood, staring at a lunatic lie prostrate, wailing, berating his mother. This wasn’t a life for me. A different time for a different time. Post-Heath felt like a reset. Cleansed, I gave myself up and got to work. Walked the miles. Touched the keys again. Rejuvenation didn’t happen overnight - what truly can be achieved swiftly.

I was sliding back. Another night, another call from the plagiarist.

Sweating, humid, crouching in the garden. Eleven, close to twelve, listening for the frogs. A flat, jagged rock the size of my hand cooled my forehead.

What to do.

My silence, infuriating and unsettling as it must have been for the plagiarist, was responsible for the toxicity I carried around. Constantly on edge. Waiting for the missive. Knowingly putting myself through something so ridiculous and painful, at the expense of mine and, worse, my family’s happiness.

I realised this wasn’t the first time I’d done this to myself, not even close.

Had to be the last. Time to walk the miles again.

***

Time passed, feeling good. I took delivery of my new novel, a midday glare in my eyes as I spoke with my publisher, watching as he unpacked my author copies from an old cardboard box, the same box he always seemed to have. Release day. No launch event due to Covid. I was fine with that. Worked out well enough down the road.

There had been no contact from the plagiarist.

Good days, good weeks, good months.

I was lean and back working for myself. It still didn’t pay to spend a moment thinking about what had happened with the plagiarism. No thoughts. A fierce routine established. Like Shelia said, control your mind. I knew what to do. Ways of being only.

No contact.

Release day. No contact. Nothing but a sunny evening and-

Hello Dom I Missed You!

To message me now, on this day, at this time of this day, the arrival of my novel, a moment where he might reason I would feel happy, open-minded, susceptible to feelings of generosity, forgiveness, and, for all he knew, already under the influence of alcohol, ready to let my guard down. I knew it made total sense that he would try this, even after all the time that had passed.

Time I had lost forever.

Time I had gradually – eventually – used to reconfigure myself.

I left the phone in the bathroom as I hurried my eldest daughter out of the shower, not mentioning anything to Laura as we went through the usual bedtime routine. The girls were exhausted that evening and flopped into bed and blackout silence without any hustle for extra time.

We had a quiet evening.

By that, I mean I was quiet.

Lost an evening. I messaged Connor and, yes, of course, the plagiarist had messaged Connor immediately after messaging me. The vaguest questions. Dom’s Banalities.

Lost the next morning.

Except I lost it on a run out of the city, thirty-five kilometres, hills, dirt, animals. Listened to headphones for some, nature for some. No self. Thoughts about Laura, the girls, childhood dreams, Masvidal vs Askren, Jordan was right, Joe was right, Dicky was right, Xavier was right. Hot day. Glad for the heat. No sweat.

Everything came from self.

Everything for self, everything for the work.

No time. Too busy for this. A corny bluffer ripped my first book. Wild mimetic desires. Was it worth it, bro-

Nope. None of my business.

Levels and layers to this game. Whatever happened, happened. I blocked the plagiarist at every turn. Quietly, finally done. Dom would always be Dom. The eternal plagiarist flex. He was welcome.  

***

Too much other work, an investment to complete. Watched Jeen-Yuhs, Red Rocket, The Nest. Calmer weather. Return to edits. Laura said to beam back down to earth from the spaceship. Controlled my mind. Nearly. Almost there. Rewrite. Edits. Back to the ethic. Warmer weather. Finished him: Fatality! No need to speak on it again. Might be mad I ever gave it my attention. Funny how that goes.

The time that passed, passed.

My life that changed, changed.

Here’s the one reply you’ll ever get from me, Dom.

Thank you for helping me make this.