May 25 Round-up

This month I finished my first novel, a psychological horror, which came in around 70,000 words. I’ve sent it off to a few agents, but I expect it’ll be a case of self-publishing in Kindle. I’ll talk more about that in later posts, but it’s been a very enjoyable process. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it is there – the first step in writing a good novel is to write a novel.

I was struck by the phrase Alison Light used to refer to the Golden Age of detective fiction as the “literature of convalescence“. She was arguing that after the horrors of the First World War, people wanted the certainty of fiction by the likes of Agatha Christie, where a solution was always provided and everything was neatly resolved. We are very much in the middle of a crisis at the moment, and the daily bombardment of “what the fuck?” is exhausting, but I wonder if there is also some of this attitude of seeking a literature of peace and resolution to at least provide a break. A literature of daily convalescence. I’ve found this in the writing of a book also, being able to spend time in a world I created is a blessed relief.

Maren and I went to Amsterdam for a few days, where I indulged in some vinyl shopping at their extensive range of record shops. And some of those museum things too.

Books

In the vein of literature of convalescence I have been enjoying Martha Wells Murderbot series and started watching the Apple TV adaption also. The very cosy Vinyl Detective series also fits this purpose.

But one has to stay engaged also, and I found CN Lester’s Trans Like Me a very accessible mix of memoir and passionately argued account of the trans experience and the associated myths and false beliefs. I came away from Matthew Hollis’s (overly) exhaustive account of the creation of TS Eliot’s The Wasteland with renewed enthusiasm for the poem and increased dislike for nearly all the people involved.

Vinyl

I’ve mainly been picking up second hand vinyl (see Amsterdam trip), but one album I bought this month which has been on repeat is the 2022 release from Ethel Cain, A Preacher’s Daughter. Cain is a pseudonym for Hayden Silas Anhedönia, (coincidentally given my reading, also a trans woman) and the album is a concept about the life of the character, Ethel Cain. It tracks Cain’s escape from her small town, falling in with a bank robber and then an abusive and ultimately fatal relationship. It’s heavy on the Southern Gothic, and also has an interesting internet life, with interviews with the fictional Cain, missing posters, news reports, etc. There is apparently a prequel album coming this year.