William Seward Burroughs

I have a new piece on Lit Up Magazine - it's about William Burroughs' influence on my life, the Dudes, & my addiction to literature. Went with Fi Barham to the launch party of Succour Journal 8. Had a chat with Anthony Banks, the managing editor. Met up with Paul Ewen in The Yorkshire Grey for a few beers & good conversation. Check out Paul's London Pub Reviews - an extremely funny collection of fictions set in London's pubs - what there's left of them; like independent bookshops, a lot of traditional London boozers are closing down. I loved this headline - "Monkey Brains Control Robot Arms" - isn't that a Flaming Lips song? Cheers.

From Welsh to Chinese

I remember reading Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting (1993) while recovering from an operation on my cruciate ligament that I ruptured playing as a striker for John Murphy's team in Regent's Park: cool scar - I enjoyed it (Trainspotting, that is). It was different, slightly experimental. Since then The Acid House was OK, Marabou Stork Nightmares very good, Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance disappointing, Filth funny, Glue average, Porno poor, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs very poor, & If You Liked School You'll Love Work I never got round to reading. Anyway, Ben Myers has an interesting blog on Welsh and his rage in today's Guardian - & I stick my oar in occasionally in the comments.

&, yesterday, The Japan Times published my article on Chinese women's fiction - Warrior Woman to Passport Baby. The latter being the title of Yu-Han Chao's first novel.

Come & Have A Go If You Think You're Avant-Garde Enough

There was a time when I'd never miss an FA Cup Final but I don't have a TV & the dodgy live feeds I can find are not only dodgy but it's like watching microbes replicate through a fish tank. So, I'm listening to the Meat Puppets & keeping track of the score. Good piece on Ezra Pound in The Guardian Review here - apparently, both Arthur Rimbaud & Ezra Pound had The Yorkshire Grey, Fitzrovia, as their local. & by coincidence, I walked past the house in which Rimbaud & Verlaine lived in Camden in 1873 (pic left). & I have a new piece of fiction - Isle of Bones (the first in a series) on Word Riot. I managed to get football, pubs, poetry, walking, & my own writing into this post. Not too shabby.

Things I Have Recently Discovered...

..the Turneresque industrialscapes of Sean Thomas, stories & novels of Mark SaFranko - Melissa Mann dedicates a Beat the Dust to the man, a liking for Charles Bukowski after a long hiatus - thanks to the writings of SaFranko and Dan Fante, peeling skin from my body is fun, oh, & writing a story with no holds barred, be afraid, be very, etc...

Book Report - April 2008

I'm bored peeling the blistered skin from my sunburned arms, picking the dried scabs from my scalp, & dosing my cold sores with Germolene, so here's the April book report.

Paul Theroux: The Great Railway Bazaar - One of the great pieces of travel writing. Theroux is a much better non-fiction writer than a he is a novelist; his best fiction is thinly disguised autobiography, & - apart from the brilliant Mosquito Coast - his novels suffer when compared to his travel writing. There's a wonderful egotism running through Theroux's works & it rears its exquisitely made-up face here in Theroux's journey from London to Osaka (mostly) by train & then back to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Express.

TC Boyle: Stories (Death) - Boyle is a consummate short-story writer turning his hand & his tricks to multiple subjects & personas - a refreshing read when, these days, most short-story collections are novelistic in the stories' interconnectivity & character placement. Boyle moves from dirty to magical realism & from humour to horror with mesmerizing ease. His energy is addictive & anyone wanting to learn the art of the short story should read this book.

Gordon Burn: Born Yesterday - published simultaneously in hardback & paperback, this non-fiction novel takes the news of the summer of 2007 & turns it into fiction. Or does it? Burns questions the veracity of the news, the ferocity of the media once latched on to a story - the Madeleine McCann case takes centre stage - Burns questions fiction's response to instant 24-hour news, to blogs, to the slow erosion of historic images (I even found myself feeling sorry for Mrs Thatcher on her lonely walks through Battersea Park - forgotten, forlorn, history, no longer news).

Daren King: Tom Boler - Daren King's voice is a refreshing one in the days of corporate publishing, safe-as-houses novels, memoirs - Tom Boler is the prequel to his excellent Boxy an Star - my favourite King novel is Jim Giraffe - no one writes quite like Daren - anywhere. & he seems such a nice guy as well.

Gordon Burn: Best & Edwards - or Drunk & Dunc as I like to call it. Now, I had to go into a bookshop & buy this thing. I'm a Liverpool supporter for Shankly's sake & I picked it up & took it to the counter as if it were a rabid spider crab. Not just about football & two very different players, but about the change in Britain from the 50s to the 70s & on to today with the millionaire assholes who play the game (Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, William Gallas) - I'm not saying they're not good players - Ronaldo & Drogba are up there with the best - but the attitude - & not just to football... Hold on, I sound like my grandfather - Bring oos a coop of tea, oor Gladys. I'm that thirsty I could drink a pint of camel's pee.

Paul Theroux: Dark Star Safari - hmmm.... seems to be some sort of thread forming here. Another good Theroux - this time he travels from Cairo to Cape Town by whatever means possible - well, except for flying between the two cities - that would be a rather boring travelogue. In his twenties, Theroux lived in Africa & he returns to see what's changed.

Patrick Hamilton: The Midnight Bell - somewhere in the world, I hope there's a PhD student sweating over his laptop writing a comparative study of John Fante & Patrick Hamilton - if there isn't, there should be - Hamilton does sleaze & drinking & working & love & faith as well as Fante - a gem of a novel set off the Euston Road & oozing down into a drizzled Soho that's streets are lined with prostitutes & wide boys - this is the first novel in the trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky - I'm going to do my own piece of research & see if I can locate the pub in which most of the action is set - I have a good idea which one it is.

Right - off to salve my mosquito bites, balm my spider bites, & moisturize my sunburn. Slick.