At thirty, I fled from my life
in a hailstorm and firestorm, into what
I termed ‘the big rest’,
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘It seemed that recording her sickness was cold and vulgar, that if ever I should be a participant and not an observer, this was the time.’
‘I love Shakespeare’s slow insistence, which mirrors the action within the poem: there is nothing but grief to reach.’ Paula Bohince on Shakespeare’s sonnet 50.
‘I like the friction of fixed physical atmospheres with different lives passing through.’
‘As soon as I turned the corner, I saw her. She was swimming across the blue sea, the only person in the entire swimming pool.’
Fiction by Yang Zhihan, translated by Helen Wang.
‘Our battle is between those trapped inside the institutions of modern American life (our economic and political systems in particular) and those who manipulate such institutions for their own profit.’
