Nick Holdstock

There is something unsettling about new books appearing from dead authors. It makes the writers seem as alive as before, because in most cases we did not know them as people: all we had, as proof of life, was the release of a new book, the barrage of reviews. But in recent years, as the situation of the major publishers has become increasingly straitened, the scouring of literary estates seems to have intensified. Since Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007 there have been several collections of previously published work, and there was recently a collection of 14 previously unpublished stories entitled Look at the Birdie. Whilst there are clear instances of writers wanting something unfinished (or simply unpublished) to appear after their death (Mark Twain, for example, did not want his autobiography published until 100 years after his death) it seems unlikely that a writer of Vonnegut’s popularity had 14 early, unpublished stories more or less kicking around. If he had wanted them published, there is little chance that anyone would have refused, whatever their relative merits. There are probably few serious writers who do not have a few novels or short stories, which although they cannot get rid of- as one cannot discard a child – they prefer to keep in the drawer.

At least the same cannot be said of David Foster Wallce’s forthcoming unfinished novel The Pale King (due April 15th 2011). Wallace is said to have taken considerable pains that the manuscript be in good order, to the point where he left in the open, with lamps shining on it, before he killed himself. The novel focuses on IRS agents in Illinois, and is said to be an attempt to engage with boredom. However, Wallace’s wishes regarding another book are far less clear. In December, Columbia University Press will publish Wallace’s undergraduate theses, entitled Fate, Time and Language. Though it may be, as the promotional material claims, ’a brilliant philosophical critique of Richard Taylor’s argument for fatalism’, it is hard not to feel uneasy about the appearance of a work which Foster Wallace made no effort to get published during his lifetime. Though there are sound critical motives for wanting to see such a work- it would probably provide an insight into the evolution of Foster Wallace’s ideas on free will and the uses of language -it is hard to say whether these should take precedence over the author’s probable intentions. Whilst one must be glad for some refusals to follow an author’s last wishes (such as Max Brod’s unwillingness to burn Kafka’s work), in other cases it is hard not to be skeptical about a publisher’s motives for wanting to sell an obscure piece of youthful work by a recently deceased major writer.

I have a new story in the latest issue of Northwords Now- you can download it here or pick up a copy from a bookstore or library, should you happen to live in the north, as the term applies to Scotland.

I am writing this in Beijing, where I may be for some time…

Barry Hannah, a writer who could make a sentence twist and kick and still make sense, has died aged 67. It would be incorrect to say that his books have influenced me greatly- it is something they still, and will, continue to do. High Lonesome is as good as any place to start. I hope that some of the stories’ titles put a hook in you:

‘Ned Maxy, He watching you.’

‘Snerd and Niggero’

‘Through Sunset into the Racoon Night’

‘Taste like a sword’

‘Get some young’

He had this to say about his writing:

“There’s a ghost in every story. Something haunts the story and you’re turning those pages to find out what it is. And it better be good. I’d better be good, or just shut up.”

An old interview with Hannah, from 1993: Barry Hannah Interview with Don Swaim

Some nice reviews for the GHB 2 (here and here), most recently in the Edinburgh Evening News by the wonderful Peggy Hughes. There’s also a thoughtful one in the latest Northwords Now (in the print edition, but soon to be online). The book can still be bought here.

Oh, and happy new year!

Galley for LRB contents page

Nearly 600 boxes (or 275 linear feet’s worth) of material from the 30 years of the London Review of Books has gone to the archives of the University of Texas, in Austin. The files contain correspondence (between editorial staff, contributors and readers), typescript submissions and page proofs, complete with annotations. There are also pieces (and here my heart skips a beat) that failed to make it to publication, on which are written comments such as ‘not urgent’, ‘not this week’ or worst of all, ‘Killed’. The only frustrating thing about the scans included in the article is that the annotations on the pages are (no doubt deliberately) not quite legible. More here.