A Brand New Social Network from my Buddies at Supertart.com

Perhaps inspired by Ello and the rise of a myriad of alternative social networks which promise to right all the wrongs of the previous generation of social networks, my buddies and bunch of scamps at Supertart.com (inventors of the Price of Tea in China calculator) have launched their own social network.

Social! the Social Network
Social! the Social Network

It’s likely going to be my preferred network, since it seems to be relatively free of advertising, data collection, and social stuff. Perfect for the writer or human who just wants to stop messing around on the internet and get stuff done.

So go on and check it Social!. I would send you an invite, but I’m still waiting for mine.

Meeting Joseph O’Connor (and Anne Enright)

So, by pure chance I got to see Joseph O’Connor at the Listowel Writer’s Festival in beautiful Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland back in May.

Joseph O'Connor at the Listowel Writers' Festival
Joseph O’Connor at the Listowel Writers’ Festival

But this makes it sound like a Bigfoot sighting. Well, this Bigfoot stood in front of a room of a couple hundred people or so. He talked a little bit about the way he writes, the way he wrote his last three or so novels (Star of the Sea, Redemption Falls, Ghost Light, The Thrill of it All) — which was painstakingly slow, audible, and meticulous. It was a great relief to those sitting on the other side of the podium that those books didn’t just pour out of him like some unstoppable torrent of beautiful whole cloth prose. And so he talked, he read aloud from his new book, and then adjourned to the back to sign books and meet and greet the punters.
Thankfully I’d thought to bring my bodyguard and number one bulldog along, who barged us ahead to nearly the front of the line. They didn’t think to give Joseph a table or chair or bodyguards of his own — perhaps the flak-jacketed, Uzi-toting sentries at American book readings and signings don’t translate overseas well — so he stood at the back of the hall, awaiting the queue like a Bigfoot at the DMV.
My bulldog/bodyguard prepped me — Don’t sound like a fool when you step up to meet Joseph O’Connor. I can’t tell you whether or not I succeeded. All I can tell you is I told him about Aer Lingus going on strike and causing us to miss our flight and be able to attend this Bigfoot sighting.
“In Ireland we call it ‘Ahn Far Lia More.'”
“Oh?”
“Sure, why not?”

At some point I wasn’t talking to the Bigfoot any more, having retired, or been retired, by my minder, to the Listowel Arms’ hotel bar. She patiently waited for me to regain consciousness.
And I did, eventually. But that’s not *all* of the story.

A couple pints of Guinness settle in for a good read
A couple pints of Guinness settle in for a good read

When I recovered my senses (I would say it fell short of a swoon), I marveled at my newly signed copy of Joe’s new book, sipped my glass of Guinness, fraternized with my minder. After a time, as was our wont, we left the bar, headed for some night air when who should we spy, in that same night air, but Joseph O’Connor, erstwhile Bigfoot, brother of Sinéad, vanquisher of empty pages.
“Invite him in for a drink,” said my minder in an uncharacteristically permissive mood.
So we approached. The man stood, still, as if he resented ever bending his legs, given that his profession likely involves lots of that, smoking a cigarette, as you’re still allowed to do in Ireland. I was about to hail him with something no doubt witty, despite my minder not giving me the timely reminder to not sound like a fool, when Anne Enright, eminent Irish author and resident, leapt out of a nearby tree, or possibly flew down from the ramparts of the hotel. She wore a purple cape, stood about five foot even, when she landed, and was also smoking a cigarette.
“Ah!” I exclaimed, whether of fright or delight, I can’t tell you.
“Ah, this is Anne Enright,” said Joseph O’Connor.
I nodded. The great intertwined Æ emblem emblazoned on her jumper made that bit more sense, then.

She said somethings which traveled far too fast, far too erudite for me to catch. Puffed on her cigarette. I goggled.
“She’s an Irish writer,” Joseph said. “From Ireland…”
“I know,” I choked. “The Gathering.”
“Oh! You’re American,” she said. “The Americans know me.” She gave Joseph O’Connor a knowing look and a nod and pulled on her cigarette. Looked warily around the courtyard, the street, as if looking for trouble.
“Oh!” My minder poked me. I had also been scanning the street for trouble, purely out of peer (or if not peer at least proximal) pressure. Looked at my minder, at a loss as to what the poke meant. “I… umm.” The cape was distracting, as was the way it wafted on a nonexistent breeze. “Oh. Would *you* like to, ah, join us for a drink?” I also realized I hadn’t asked Joseph aloud to join us, so I turned to him and awkwardly bowed in a way that I suppose meant that the question was also for himself.
Anne Enright shook her head solemnly. The cigarette flung its ash in a small arc. Joseph was also shaking his head.
“Maybe later,” they said, “we’ll see you in there. But for now…” They looked at each other, stubbed out their cigarettes and flew off into the still bright Irish night air.

The author, Anne Enright, and Joseph O'Connor. Not drunk, I swear.
The author, Anne Enright, and Joseph O’Connor. Not drunk, I swear.

Thought I heard them discussing the hassles of moving house in the Dublin suburbs as they receded into the distance.
As we watched them fly out of sight, Kevin Barry emerged from the shadows of a bush people had been pouring the remains of their drinks and spent cigarette butts into. He cackled like a madman and wore a gravity-defying mask. He scuttled towards the hotel, but was tackled before he could get to the door by a spry David Mitchell, who apologized for butting in, being English, but he lived just down the road, you see. Kevin Barry was tumbled into the open door of a gray van, which appeared to have the ghost of Seamus Heaney at the wheel, a disgruntled John Banville/Benjamin Black seated in the passenger seat.

Illuminati wuz here
Illuminati wuz here

Claire North, Writing on Time Travel

As some of you may know, Butterfly, a novel is tangentially about time travel.

Time Travel at 6am
Time Travel at 6am

Claire North, author of the dazzling The Fifteen First Lives of Harry August, has written a blog post for Waterstones about just that very subject, since her book has a slightly different take on time travel than the usual “hop in a machine/Delorean and visit the past or future” bent.

It’s a good read about the problems every writer faces when thinking about writing about time travel. While Butterfly involves a machine and is of the (slightly) more traditional time travel narrative, it also doesn’t harp on that fact. Like Ms. North mentions:

“However, the stories we write are still stories about people – perhaps people beset on all sides by paradox and physics, but still people. “

Butterfly has always been about, first and foremost, the people: William Murphy, retired professional hockey player, Laura, his wife and now breadwinner for the family, their daughter, Sadie, Germaine, William’s ex-teammate and childhood buddy, and a venue that approaches time travel from yet another point of view, Old Sturbridge Village.

But while you’re waiting for Butterfly to come out, go read Claire North’s blog post, and then hit the library or your local book shop to pick up The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August: A Review

I’ve had a great run of luck with books lately (maybe not my own, with regards to finding it an agent, but I’m working on that still). Starting with Swash!, by Brendan Myers, and then the whole amazing Last Policeman trilogy from Ben H. Winters, the post-apocalyptic former garbage man in Adam Sternbergh’s Shovel Ready, Sandman Slim crawling up out of Hell into Los Angeles in Richard Kadrey’s series starter. And Simon Rich’s excellent short story collection, The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories. But I wanted to highlight Claire North’s amazing The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. So here’s my review of it. Enjoy.

 

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book.
I’ve always loved this book.
Each and every lifetime in which I’ve read it.
In fact, I loved it so much that the next time through I visited Claire North (pseudonym) in 2005 — it took me a while to find her pseudonymous self — and handed her a partial outline of an idea for a book about a kalachakra, a person who lives their lifetime over and over again.
She told me she’d already gotten an idea like that and called her patent lawyers.

So in my next life I tracked her down more quickly, came prepared with better notes. Saw her in 1990. Dropped off my scribbled notes in her school bag on a fine Scottish morning. The sensation of a five year old publishing a book which such a fun, imaginative plot and ripe characters made ripples that probably caused some odd things to happen downstream through the ages, but at least I got to read it earlier.

In my next life I tried giving the same notes to her father, but nothing came of it. He didn’t care for the visceral descriptions of the tortures Harry August endures, yet endures with a type of detachment. The next after that I tried it out on her mother in 1981, but that, too, had no effect. The very next life I tried publishing the book myself, which is when the publisher pulled me aside, in the grimy halls of the printing room.
“You can’t publish this book.”
“Why not?” I may have stuttered a little.
He peered at me over the top of his glasses, which never seemed to sit well, as if the cloud of ink in which he seemed to walk prevented his glasses from adhering to his face.
I flapped the manuscript.
“Claire wants you to know that she knows.”
“But… but she hasn’t even been born yet.”
The publisher simply looked at me, his hand held out for the manuscript.
“Aw.”
“Is this the only extant copy?” He waggled his fingers at the manuscript I could tell was already slipping out of my hand. “Don’t lie, now, she’ll know. You know she’ll know.”
I nodded, and handed over the pages and skulked off and just waited and waited and waited until 2014, when the book would finally be published.

Except I didn’t have to wait. Because I had one last copy because I’d spent the previous life memorizing the book and read it over again in my mind. In fact, I even wrote this review back in 1978, I just had to wait and wait for someone to come around and invent Goodreads.com.

I thought the plot was a lot of fun, the characters an excellent cast with whom you could spend a few lifetimes. There were beautiful moments when kalachakra meet each other in passing (Joseph Kirkbriar Shotbolt’s story is a good one — ‘”Oh God,” he groaned, seeing me read. “You’ve trained as a doctor, haven’t you? Can’t stand bloody doctors, especially when they’re five years old.”), the mysterious Cronus Club saving its members, and sometimes not. The book was a spy novel, a time travel novel, a story about a couple of friends. What a fantastic read.

View all my reviews