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interesting part of a Mike McCormack interview about the role of the editor in fostering a new generation of writers. I was particularly interested as we've talked about the reduced role of the editor in publishing, in relation to how something like Lanchester's Capital gets published. The conditions for allowing exciting literature to take place do seem to be, as James and Tim have both said, independent publishing houses willing to take risks, and also, perhaps, willing to keep the role of editor at a level of importance it had in the past.
He is generous in his praise for other writers, and talks about others’ experimentation. “It passed people by a little bit, and it’s a tribute to the artistry of the book, just how canny an experiment Donal Ryan’s first book was. It was so seamlessly done that people forgot. This is novel as montage, I think there are 21 narrators.” And then there’s “Claire Kilroy’s latest book The Devil I Know. That was brilliant. She depicted the Celtic Tiger as a cartoon, as almost Looney Tunes, and critics were unsure of it, but I thought she nailed it and it was a brilliant book.” Then there’s Lisa McInerney, “ there’s something surging and powerful about what she does, it’s nearly a life force all itself. And Rob Doyle, his two experimental books are something to laud. And Claire Louise Bennett, with Declan Meade at Stinging Fly, is doing brilliant work. Such a terrific writer.
He points out that “this generation of Irish writers are having their first editorial screening and tuning with Irish editors. A gifted generation of writers are being fostered by an equally gifted generation of young Irish editors. I think it’s an important moment. These editors have grown up with the idea of Ireland as a place which is hospitable to experimental literature. They know their Beckett, their Joyce, their Flann O’Brien, so the bejesus isn’t frightened out of them when they get an experimental manuscript. In England, you’ve no business going with an experimental manuscript. People just don’t want to know.”
So what changed?
“I think we found the old ways of speaking to ourselves and of ourselves did not work, didn’t provide a complete picture of who we were. Ryan’s first book, that narrative montage which painted all its cross cutting voices, its medley of voices as a choral piece: it depicted one of the most coherent pictures of rural Ireland.
“I think there was this gathering notion that the old narrative techniques weren’t fully capturing who we were and what we were about.” Writers are being “fostered by very inquisitive and able editors. The willingness to experiment found generous editors.”
― Fizzles, Saturday, 29 September 2018 12:08 (five years ago) link
I was thinking about getting something from them as well, as you say, the cover designs are superb.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 29 September 2018 12:21 (five years ago) link
Yeah, read her first two books, though not that one. Nope, don't like them. But she's probably a pretty good representation of a certain kind of Danish literature.
― Frederik B, Friday, 5 October 2018 14:41 (five years ago) link