‘The criminal language of detective fiction is subject to the same liability to backfire as crime itself.’
Of the contest represented in detective fiction between crime and detection, hiding and seeking, it may be asked: which side is taken by the language of the representation? Perhaps a case might be made that language plays accomplice to the criminal, whose secret it preserves virtually to the point o…
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‘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.
‘Corporate publishing is the channel through which literature happens to flow at this moment in history.’
Christian Lorentzen dissects the literary establishment.
Momtaza Mehri and Warsan Shire talk about nineties London, parentification and diasporic inheritances.
‘The self is the work of art. Criticism puts that self in the service of other art.’
The authors discuss the multiplicity of the self, the idea of necessity, and how to work with what you lack.
‘While he didn't mind (not much anyway) being responsible for the death of one cat, his cat, he did not feel good shouldering the death of four cats.’
