The paperback of my second novel is now at liberty.
Category Archives: Delights
The Fawn
I wrote about The Fawn for the TLS.
The Rest is Slander
I wrote about the new Bernhard collection for the TLS.
Witness
Too Much of Life
I wrote about Clarice Lispector’s newspaper columns for Literary Review.
Sverige mini tour

Looking forward to reading in Sweden next week at the English Bookshop, at both its Stockholm and Uppsala branches, on the 18th and 20th respectively. I have good memories of doing an event there for The Casualties all the way back in… 2017.
SWH podcast
Thanks to Ali Braidwood for a stimulating and enjoyable conversation about Quarantine that you can listen to here.
First chapter
You can read the start of Quarantine here.
BBC Afternoon Show
You can hear me on the BBC Radio Scotland Afternoon Show talking about Quarantine.
Segment starts at 1.10.21.
Other epigraphs
One epigraph for a novel is plenty – and perhaps already too much – but in an attempt to have it both ways, here are some of the big-eyed darlings I had to drown for the new book. First is a quote from Walter Benjamin’s essay on Proust.
From Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart (tr. Alison Entrekin)
And Goethe’s poem ‘Above the mountaintops’
The woman in the window
I wrote about staring out the window for the Royal Literary Fund.
Launch
I’ll be launching my new novel Quarantine at Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh on May 5th. Tickets available here.
The Silentiary
I reviewed Di Benedetto’s reissued novel for the TLS.
Open
I have a new story at Lunate called ‘Open’.
Best of 2021
I picked 3 short fictions for Banshee magazine, all of them challenging, interesting pieces. Lots of other good picks on the list to investigate.
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
I wrote about Ai Wei Wei’s memoir for Literary Review. Inexplicably, the review makes no mention of this incident:
Hard Like Water
I wrote aout Yan Lianke’s newly translated (but old) novel for the Times Literary Supplement. Mao gets the best line in the piece:
Quarantine
My second novel will be out from Swift Press next year – you can pre-order here.
Neighbourly
I have a story in the new issue of Banshee about the joys of tenement living. You can preorder here.
Review of ‘My Old Home’
My piece on Orville Schell’s novel is in the latest TLS.
Moscow Monumental
I wrote about Moscow’s Stalinist skyscrapers for the Financial Times.
TLS Review of The False River
Thanks to Aleksandra Kos for an interesting piece which argues that the book explores ‘the experience of embodiment and how this shapes social relations’.
Loyal
I have a new story on the Short Fiction website about being scared to go outside on a hot day. So not topical at all.
In search of golden chamber pots
I wrote about the delights of literary ‘success’ for the Royal Literary Fund.
Imagine that this Page is Empty
My story, as titled above, is the story of the month at the Willesden Herald. It’s from my first story collection The False River.
Writers Aloud interview
Dystopia
I went on Swedish radio to talk about Xinjiang and other small questions like the future of China. Listen here
Creative Scotland grant
Thanks to Creative Scotland for awarding me a grant to work on my next novel, which if you squint at, or close one eye, you could call a love story.
Herald Review
There’s a review of The False River in The Herald newspaper today.
‘The False River
Nick Holdstock
Unthank, £9.99
The Willesden Herald Short Story Prize might not sound glitzy, but it allows Nick Holdstock’s story “Ward” (in which a teenage girl’s cancer diagnosis changes the course of her life) to be described as award-winning, which feels deserved. And judging by the quality of these stories, it won’t be his last accolade. Short story collections are often front-loaded with the best work, but The False River actually becomes more compelling as it goes along. His ease with dark and transgressive themes (animal-lovers should skip past “The Ballad of Poor Lucy Miller”) brings to mind a young Ian McEwan, but Holdstock is a multi-faceted writer who often seems to be urging his stories to break free of the frames surrounding them and even alters one character mid-story because he doesn’t like the direction it’s going. But mostly this accomplished collection is driven by a burning curiosity about the psychological states of its characters, and it should put him firmly on the literary map.
Extract in The Scotsman
The start of ‘And Then’, a story from The False River, appears in today’s Scotsman newspaper.