‘I nursed a precocious rage at the stratagems society was employing to keep me from seeing naked women.’
From an early age, I was very interested in nudity. My father was a nudist manqué. He made many attempts, which I was witness to, to cajole my mother into going with him to a genuine nudist colony in Mendocino County. There was considerable casual nudity exhibited by both my parents in the normal p…
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.
‘Who should write memoirs? I have the not-entirely-serious and absurdly restrictive idea that only morally extraordinary people could write them honestly without much shame’
‘People say it’s healthy for couples to fight, it means there’s still passion. I’ve always assumed that was bullshit, but now I’m not sure.’
Fiction by Brad Phillips.
‘I don’t think much of the very silly, even gullible, person that I am.’
Fiction by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff.
‘The people she longed to be understood by, the ones at whom her anxious hope was pinned, were her parents.’
Fiction by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund.
‘A should probably write that it hit uz like a smack in the guts, or the red mist cem down or sumet like that, but in all honesty, a can just remember feelen upset.’
New fiction by Shaun Wilson.
’I once heard a theory about this town, this place where we work and wrangle, where we swindle and swive‘.
