‘The only path to tread, from now on, was downward.’
At first, everybody on the street had the same purchasing power, and belongings per capita comprised a bicycle, a football, a box of Playmobil, some building blocks and other odds and ends. With the release of the sticker album for the ’82 World Cup, however, we did notice a slight change in the d…
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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.
‘He did what people told him to do. He was a machine.’
A short story by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Annie Tucker.
‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
‘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.
‘Whatever porn is or is not, like dance it is rooted in the body.’
Saskia Vogel on the relationship between dance and pornography.
‘He played it as loud as he could, as though he hoped the music would remind the hay in the barn above of green grass and blue cornflowers.’
