FESTIVAL BOOKS | Previews
PAUL HARDING Dark psalm from Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Paul Harding won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his debut novel Tinkers. This year he visits Edinburgh to discuss his latest book, Enon, which is narrated by Charlie Crosby, a relative of the dying protagonist in Tinkers. Charlie is also grieving for a life lost: that of his beloved daughter Kate, who is killed in a car accident at the beginning of the novel. ‘I thought I had a kind of thrilling ghost story on my hands,’ says Harding. ‘I did, it turns out, but a wholly darker, more tragic sort than I first imagined. The book turned into a lamentation, a prayer, a dark psalm.’
Both novels follow characters trying to make sense
of their identities and of the importance of the past. Like Tinkers, Enon uses the memories and dreams of the characters so effectively that they provide an often disturbing intimacy between the reader and character. ‘Things like dreams and memories and hallucinations come naturally, since they are functions of consciousness, of experience, which are for me the hallmarks of character.’
Nature too plays an important role in Harding’s writing. ‘Personally, I love pastoral writing, writing that is deeply embedded in landscape. I don’t write about landscapes per se, though. I use them as raw, objective material for experience. I pass landscape, through the protagonist’s consciousness and the angle of refraction, so to speak, becomes character itself.’
‘As disturbing as the book may be, it is still meant to be affirmative, still meant to say “yes” to this world.’ However fixated on death Enon is, there is life in Harding’s writing, a poetic celebration of the things that keep us going. (Kylie Grant) ■ Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 3735888, 26 Aug, 8.30pm, £7 (£5).
LAUREN BEUKES & INAKI MIRANDA Fairytales, fables and really bad-hair days HELEN FITZGERALD & SOPHIE MCKENZIE Dark thrills, expertly delivered
Rapunzel lets down her hair in The Hidden Kingdom, the latest storyline in the Fairest comics which spun off from popular reinvented-fairytales series Fables. This version of the character isn’t just a girl who couldn’t get a hairdresser’s appointment, but a haunted, immortal woman whose continually growing locks express her emotions. When she’s loved-up, they flow to unfeasible lengths, and when she’s angry, it becomes a really bad hair day for everyone. South African writer Lauren Beukes (pictured) – better known for bestselling novel The Shining Girls – and Spanish artist Inaki Miranda are speaking about the series as part of the Stripped strand for comics and graphic novels at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. While their work is a traditional Western comic, the story’s Japanese setting allows them to play with anime imagery and Japanese folklore and horror (which often feature ghostly characters with long hair). But it’s also a cool take on a comic which avoids the tired cliches of sexy spandex-clad superheroines. Though their Rapunzel is sometimes drawn with hair coyly hiding her nakedness, the tale’s female-centric vision makes the event a handy reminder that comics are for girls too. (Andrea Mullaney) ■ Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 373 5888, 25 Aug, 4pm, £10 (£8).
Here are two writers taking steps out of their comfort zones into darker territory, as Australian-born, Glasgow-based writer Helen Fitzgerald (pictured) explains: ‘I’ve never started with an inciting incident as terrible and as overwhelming as this before. It set a different tone for the book: more mature, less playful.’
The novel in question is The Cry, which Fitzgerald sums up in a series of headline-friendly soundbites: ‘A missing child. A cover-up. A toxic relationship. And a media frenzy.’
Appearing alongside Fitzgerald is bestselling teen fiction author Sophie
McKenzie with Close My Eyes, her debut novel for adults. Playing on the same kind of parental fears from a different angle, McKenzie gives us a main character who thinks her child died eight years ago, but she may not have the full picture.
If it all sounds a bit intense, audiences should be assured that these two incredibly prolific writers are entertainers first and foremost, and Fitzgerald describes her just-finished next novel as ‘Hitchcock’s Spellbound meets The Wicker Man’. Expect dark thrills, expertly delivered. (Paul Gallagher) ■ Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 3735888, 25 Aug, 10.15am, £10 (£8).
96 THE LIST 22 Aug–19 Sep 2013