It takes a long time to make a book. Writing them is one thing, but the rest of the process is often just as slow. The advice given to writers waiting — we’re always waiting — is to write the next thing, which is often a difficult ask having just speculated wildly with the last manuscript, which may be headed nowhere.
But I have to admit, I’m following this advice at the moment and it’s working. It turns out the trick to beating the submission blues, is to remember why you submit in the first place: you like writing.
Publication isn’t a reward.
It’s the exhaust.
The Long Firm by Jake Arnott
British author Jake Arnott’s debut The Long Firm is a book I raved about to many while I was reading it. The response I typically got back was, I know.
How did I miss this book? It’s entirely down the middle of all the stuff I like: it’s a 90s crime novel, drawing off the decade’s lurid Gen-X energy (Ellroy, Bruen, Peace), about Harry Starks, an underworld hard man with his fingers in every racket. Told by five narrators in Harry’s orbit, the overarching story is familiar — the fall of the gangster — but the specifics are new: Harry is openly gay, chronically depressed, and bold to the point of stupidity.
Thus the book opens up territory only hinted at in similar stories. I often felt like I was in James Ellroy’s and Guy Ritchie’s violent story worlds, but tucked into another corner entirely, one populated squarely by the gay characters. But Harry is no Danny Upshaw or Handsome Bob. He’s unbothered by his desires and issues. They marginalise him, but Harry thrives on the margins, an inversion of this admittedly macho sub-genre.
Hands down one of the best crime novels I’ve read this year, if not the best.
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
Initially, I was repulsed by this.
Hadn’t we heard enough from Dave Grohl? I mean, fuck. Isn’t it enough to be the last bastion of his genre, popping up every time someone needs a guitar or a long-hair or rock authenticity? It’s enough for me. I’m not a fan. My take on Grohl’s career is that he’s an incredible drummer, but over the long term he’s shown a remarkable talent for turning wine into water.
In short, I didn’t want his lockdown memoir.
(I want to interject here with some context, lest this reads as unnecessarily barbed. Look, here’s the problem. My all-time worst concert experience — my go-to for ‘the worst thing I ever sat through’ — is a Foo Fighters show in 2008. It’s hard to know where to start with how fucked up it was, but walking in during the first drum solo didn’t help. An hour later, a stage descended from the ceiling of the arena upon which the band did an acoustic set. Surely this is the bottom of the set, I thought, but then punk legend Pat Smear of the Germs was ushered onstage (I thought he’d quit the Foo Fighters, years earlier) and as Pat is introduced, he gives a little wave. This wave breaks me. I’ve seen people clock onto a shift at Coles with more enthusiasm.)
Anyway, I read the book because it kept popping up in my life. The drummer in my old band posted about it. Then it was in the shops and my local library, lurking. I leafed through it and the interiors were nice; it wasn’t just photos of the Foo Fighters and Kurt Cobain. There appeared to be chapters on Grohl’s other work with Josh Homme and Scream. I borrowed the thing fully intending to only read the good bits on the couch, but then ended up on a plane where I started at the start.
It saddens me (somewhat) to report that The Storyteller is really good. It’s concise. Grohl’s endless enthusiasm for everything is tempered by tight, co-authored chapters, all of which have clear story arcs and resolutions. It’s not a linear exploration of rock success, nor a turgid revelation of excess. In fact, Grohl represents himself as a bit of a mommy’s boy nerd, rather than a guitar hero. His book is thus quite a nice set of stories about working hard (occasionally too hard), brute-forcing luck, and the nature of parenting.
Goddman it.
Recommended.
That’s all.
— IAIN
PS: Read my thoughts here and see how I live my life here.
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