Nude erections
The LA Review of Books on James Laughlin’s New Directions press, and a life in experimental literature.
Farewell to 2014
We asked contributors to gorse nos. 1 and 2 for their favourite reads of the year.
Outposts
By Rob Doyle.
We were hitchhiking on a freeway on the outskirts of the capital. The situation incited a fearful joy. ‘Cruelty? That’s just like you.’ ‘This is my country, I don’t have to tolerate anyone.’ ‘Natürlich,’ I replied. Cars zoomed past us, a monstrous violence inherent in the world today. We were young and in love and nothing else mattered.
Bloodsports for all
We were asked by Sinéad Gleeson for the Irish Times who we’d pick as Laureate for Irish Fiction, and why. Our thoughts turned first to Groucho Marx (“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member”), then to Austrian Nestbeschmutzer Thomas Bernhard who hated accepting honours and patronage so much he wrote a book on it – My Prizes.