American Fugue is at once a fictionalized biography of one of the most famous musicians of his time, and his contemporaries; a historical novel; a disillusioned meditation on the decadence of the West; a series of philosophical reflections on love, family and intimacy (including some racy sex scenes); a powerful evocation of the ravages of Nazism, Stalinism and Capitalism; a comedy of manners . . . It’s all in there: ambition and power, money and influence, success and failure, lost illusions and existential depression, sex and betrayal.
Tag: satire
Podcast LIVE | In conversation with Maggie Gee, author
Maggie Gee was born to working-class parents, and climbed into an uneasy place between classes. She was educated at state schools, and won a major open scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford where she did an MA in English literature and an MLitt on Surrealism in England. She was one of the original Granta 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1983.
Hear the Podcast of our conversation
Gee has published fifteen books, thirteen of which are novels, including her latest, which is published by Fentum Press, Blood. A new, extended and updated edition of her 2014 novel Virginia Woolf in Manhattan has just been published by Fentum in the US.
She is a Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature, a Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and was awarded an OBE for services to literature in 2012. She is a Non-executive Director of the Authors’ Licensing and Copyright Society. Continue reading Podcast LIVE | In conversation with Maggie Gee, author
Review | Bindlestiff, Wayne Holloway | Book of the Week
“So, you get the picture. A town with a lot of flashing red lights floating above heads. That’s show business. Dead phone lines and a lot of blow jobs.”
From film classics like Sunset Boulevard in which an unsuccessful screen writer is sucked into the fantasy world of a faded silent-film star, to Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Ape and Essence, and my all-time favourite, screenwriter George Axelrod‘s mischievous satire, Where am I Now When I Need Me? . . . Los Angeles has played a leading role in too many books and films to mention. Continue reading Review | Bindlestiff, Wayne Holloway | Book of the Week
Interview | Anthony Gardner | Author of the Week
Where were you born and how did it feel to grow up between Ireland and England?
I was in London until the age of ten, and then in Tipperary with school and university in England. Going backwards and forwards between the two during The Troubles didn’t feel comfortable at all. As a writer I’ve come to appreciate the advantages of not belonging entirely in one place – always having an outsider’s eye.
What did you read as a child?
C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia; Kate Seredy’s The Good Master and The Singing Tree; John Buchan’s The 39 Steps; Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle’s Molesworth books
Who were early formative influences as a fledgling writer?
For poetry, W.B. Yeats; for prose, Evelyn Waugh and F.Scott Fitzgerald. Continue reading Interview | Anthony Gardner | Author of the Week
