‘I want the reader to be conscious of reading and not being just drawn into the book and forgetting themselves and forgetting their life.’
Claire-Louise Bennett on her novel Checkout 19.
Last year Claire-Louise Bennett and editor Josie Mitchell talked about rereading, resisting homogenisation and committing to the process of unravelling.
Claire-Louise Bennett is the author of Pond, a collection of short stories, and the 2021 novel Checkout 19.
Read an extract of Bennett’s novel here.
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘Month after month I ruefully drop the most perfect shade of red down the toilet and flush it away.’
An excerpt from Claire-Louise Bennett’s forthcoming novel.
‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
‘Postures of graceful receptivity, or surrender. How do we tell the difference?’
A.K. Blakemore introduces Suzie Howell’s photographs.
‘It occurs to me then that he has not invited me for dinner, but my alter ego from the page.’
Tabitha Lasley on writing and dating.
‘We master cartography, yet despite everything, we go back and forth often in our lives, directionless.’
Fiction by Marta Orriols, translated by Samantha Mateo.
‘News of the second contact sent the whole camp into turmoil. After long weeks spent searching in vain, a new vitality returned.’
Fiction from Juan S. Guse, translated by Gwen Clayton.
