‘She was living as herself, in herself, without ever thinking about what that meant.’
I went the other day to the loft of a friend’s house. It was amusing, how long he’d been storing my stuff. That was because he had a house, a carpeted halogen-lit house, because years ago he’d been virtuous and prudent. Even when the rest of us were busy floundering, doling out beer for rent m…
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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.
‘We all now exist as avatars, on shining tiles in these cubist landscapes’
Joanna Kavenna discusses her all-too-familiar surveillance dystopia, Zed.
‘She was so understanding, so interesting, such an intellectual. She was also a wristwatch, but this hardly mattered.’
‘We are real in an unreal reality, which we’re told is really real and that we’re actually unreal.’
An excerpt from ZED, the forthcoming novel by Joanna Kavenna, a Granta Best of Young British Novelist.
‘They slept curled together in a hammock, little scraps of fur, hearts beating madly.’ Joanna Kavenna on her pet rats, Kat Bjelland and Courtney Love.
