Look at my big grumpy face! Come and see it up close and personal at a Literary Death Match in The Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh, tomorrow, that’s Tuesday 12th March, details are all in the pic, or click through the link, whatevz.
I dunno why they’ve used my ugly mush, I’m not competing, I’m one of the judges. If you haven’t been to an LDM before, you should, they’re enormous fun. I’ve competed (and lost) in one before, and been to quite a few, and they’re always a ridiculous hoot.
So come!
Dx
Thanks to everyone who came along to the launch event for Gone Again last night and the pub after! Packed house, lots of great questions, and a few daft rambling laughs along the way. Thanks to everyone at Blackwell’s too for having us, and everyone at Faber for all their help and support.
Right, I have a hangover so I’m off to eat some cheap processed meat and reduce my life expectancy.
My latest beautiful wreck of a perfect idea
When I was studying physics, I kept waiting for someone to realise I didn’t have a proper grasp of the subject.
When I was designing radars, I couldn’t believe people were taking my word for it and trusting my work.
When I play drums, I pictured Neil Peart shaking his head. When I play guitar, J Mascis is weeping. When I sing – Jesus, don’t even go there. When I write a song, Mark Linkous is turning in his grave.
When I started as a music journalist, there were always folk out there better at writing, with a broader and deeper knowledge of bands and music scenes.
Same when I began reviewing books and interviewing authors. Who cared what I thought, eh?
And I still feel the same today, the day my fifth novel is out. There are vastly superior writers and books out there – in a world with Cormac McCarthy and Willy Vlautin and Megan Abbott and David Gates and Sara Gran and William McIlvanney and all the rest, who the hell needs me to write another stupid book?
And yet, I keep writing them. Strange, huh?
I kind of realise now, at the age of 42, that this feeling isn’t ever going to go away. In fact, it’s quite healthy and useful – it helps drive me on to do better next time, to try to improve at whatever I do. What’s that thing about ‘fail, but fail better’? That.
Ian Rankin has an Iris Murdoch quote on his wall: ‘Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.’ I like that, like it a lot.
Come and help me launch my latest wreck tonight, at Blackwell’s in Edinburgh, 6.30pm.
Cheers,
Dx
The Hunter – easily the best thing I saw this month
Aye so, keeping up this thing of writing down every book I read, film I watch and script I read, here’s the list of shit that kept me occupied in February. As you might notice, less scripts this time round, which is annoying, as I want to read more, I’ve just been a busy wee fucker, I guess.
Easily the best thing I saw was The Hunter, a beautifully moving film about a man hunting the last Tasmanian tiger. It looked amazing, and was full of pathos and depth. The worst thing I experienced was The Grey, which I thought was dross from start to finish. But then I have a problem with taking Liam Neeson seriously since Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon impersonated him so well in The Trip.
Oh, I also watched a shitload of 30Rock, which was great, and the first few eps of the Danish/Swedish drama The Bridge, which I thought was meh.
Onwards!
Books read for review
Neil Shubin, The Universe Within
Dan Rhodes, Marry Me
Esther Woolfson, Field Notes From a Hidden City
Johanna Skibsrud, This Will Be Difficult to Explain
Lucy Ellmann, Mimi
Amity Gaige, Schroder
John Jeremiah Sullivan, Blood Horses
Books read not for review
John Gordon Sinclair, Seventy Times Seven
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley
Christopher Brookmyre, Bedlam
Julia Leigh, The Hunter
Films watched
Miller’s Crossing
Jaws
The Birds
Premonition
The Shining
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The Grey
Wreck It Ralph
The Hunter
A Serious Man
House at the End of the Street
Scripts read
Rust and Bone
The Virgin Suicides
So, a whole bunch of new reviews for Gone Again have appeared over the last few days:
First off, over at The Skinny, the astute and undoubtedly handsome Bram E. Gieben reckoned it was ‘riveting from start to finish’. Thanks!
Then at The List, not a review as such, but Kirsty Logan, inspired by my book, knocked together a list of Top Five Watery Thrillers which includes the fantastic A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside. Cheers Kirsty!
Next up, Kim Forrester goes to town on the book at Reading Matters, declaring it as ‘exceptionally good… a glorious page turner’. Nice one, Kim!
Meanwhile, over at Style Parla, Adam Walters manages to squeeze plenty of enthusiasm into his wee review.
For a much more in depth review, check out Scots Whay Hae, where Alistair Braidwood is pretty blown away. I love this review, Ali really gets it! Cheers! He describes the writing as ‘…still recognisably punk; angry and unsettling, but with heart, soul and raw emotion.’ That will do nicely, sir!
And last but by no means least we have this brilliant review over at Killing Time, where we get a highly pertinent piece of Star Wars chat, then they claim I’m better than Harlan Coben. Take it easy, now, folks.
Here’s my review of Dan Rhodes’ Marry Me (Canongate) in the Independent on Sunday. It appeared two weeks ago, but I didn’t notice. I LOVED this book. Full of nasty, hilarious, dry weirdness. I read some stories out to my missus, who laughed out loud while also grimacing. That’s a neat trick, not just from my missus, but on the part of Rhodes, who managed to evoke that reaction.
OK so, my review of Lucy Ellmann’s Mimi (Bloomsbury) appeared in the Independent on Sunday at the weekend there. It’s a kind of feminist romantic comedy, I guess. With plenty of bite. A lot of nice writing and very funny in places, but I thought it kind of fell apart in the last third. Hey, just one person’s stupid opinion, right?
Aye so, I might have mentioned once or twice that my new novel, GONE AGAIN, is out 7th March. Anyway, proving that bloggers are always ahead of the game, no less than FOUR of them slung up reviews of the book around a week ago, all of them more or less going bananas over the damn thing. Here are some deets, dudes:
The blogger who popped my review cherry, as it were, was The Book Boy. Declaring me ‘a maverick’ (I hope he means a la Top Gun), he then went on to claim: ‘In this book Doug quite happily takes you to the edge of a cliff and pushes you over the edge with a dark smile on his face.’ I’d just like to state I have never been found guilty of literally doing that. Thanks, Mr Boy!
Next to tip a kindly nod at the book was Samuel Best over on his blog. Claiming to have read it in one sitting, he went on to claim: ‘Johnstone’s previous novels have all been high-speed journeys into a variety of different shitstorms, but this one is darker, more brooding, and more emotionally trying than the rest.’ I’m all about the shitstorms, Sam!
Throwing her hat into the reviewing ring next was Rush Hour Reads, who claims to have only stopped reading to eat and sleep. That’s the kind of dedication you just don’t get in the New York Times, Ms Reads! And she thought ‘Doug Johnstone’s style is brilliantly raw’. Well, if that don’t beat all. I did make these britches myself out of twine, which is pretty raw.
And last but not least for now, Raven Crime Reads gave the book a lengthy going over, describing it as ‘a pitch perfect examination of familial relationships’ before casually chucking the word ‘compelling’ at the poor, unsuspecting reader. Very kind indeed.
Huge thanks to all who took the time to engage with the book, let’s spread the word, eh? Hopefully more reviews to come soon.
Dx
I was/am in a band called Northern Alliance, along with Craig Smith and Viv Todd. Between 2003 and 2007 we released four albums, some of them on Fence Records, all of which got some very nice reviews, and went down pretty well with punters. You can now nip over to our Bandcamp site and download these albums on a pay-what-you-like basis. We were kinda lo-fi, I guess. People compared us to Mazzy Star and Sparklehorse, that sort of thing, and called us ‘sleepy’, but I don’t think we spent more time sleeping than average humans. Less, once the kids arrived.
Here are some nice quotes:
‘Northern Alliance merge the dissolute melancholy of Arab Strap with the smudged alt folk of Sparklehorse… superb.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘Gloriously ramshackle, heartbroken and drunkenly swaying, but that’s exactly where their charm lies.’ Kerrang
‘This trio are a thing of real texture and beauty’ The List
‘Genuinely affecting with a heart as heavy as the sun.’ Metro
You can find out the whole crazy, rock’n’roll story over at the band’s website, www.lowfidelity.com, which has just had a wee spring clean. It’s not the whole story – it won’t tell you which band member is allergic to strawberries, or which one had a collapsed lung, or which one had a nipple ring for ten years. That stuff is for the pub.
Anyway, fill yer boots with the music if you want. And do let us know what you think. There are rumours that we’re going to make some new music this year, but then that rumour has been kicking around for years, so I wouldn’t pay it much mind.
Cheers,
Doug x
Here is my review of Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? that appeared in The Scotsman recently. As you’ll see from my review, it was a pretty strange book – at times horribly pretentious, other times oddly profound. Either way, it was very navel-gazing.
Doug Johnstone 