In spite of fashion and a smoking band the ‘brotherhood of the briar’ proves largely unflappable


Sign in to Granta.com.
‘It was as though, after a period of wariness, my pipe had warmed to me.’
In spite of fashion and a smoking band the ‘brotherhood of the briar’ proves largely unflappable
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘There’s this paradoxical nostalgia where even though yi suffered, yi miss it.’
Memoir by Graeme Armstrong.
‘She boils her sentences down to high-sucrose sweeties and calibrates her tone for maximum engagement.’
Fiction by Natasha Brown.
‘The monstrous years of my late teens lay lined up alongside the rest of my life like bullets in a gun.’
A story by Sophie Mackintosh.
‘Without waiting for me she removes her white shirt. Each button a piece of my own spine, undone.’
Fiction by K Patrick.
‘I followed him onto the dancefloor and he put his hands on my hips as if he’d known me for at least an hour.’
Fiction by Saba Sams.
Andrew Martin is a freelance writer living in London. He is the author of nine detective novels and four non-fiction books including, Ghoul Britannia, Notes on a Haunted Island, Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube and most recently, Flight by Elephant, World War II's most Daring Jungle Mission. ‘The Rollercoaster Champion of the World’ appeared in Granta 79.
More about the author →‘At the moment, I would say that depends what you mean by ‘believe’ and what you mean by “God”’
‘Q: When is a factory not a factory? A: When it’s a chocolate factory.’
‘As he spoke, I thought how much Richard himself looked like a flyer: at forty-three he is symmetrical and compact, like Scott Tracy, the handsomest of those idealized pilots in Thunderbirds.’
‘At the entrance to the gynaecology clinic, I ring the bell.’
Fiction by Agnes Chew.
‘This one – it’s a bit of a beast, he said.’
An extract from Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer. Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2022.
The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by Granta or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us.