LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL PREVIEWS FESTIVAL BOOKS
BRYAN TALBOT & MARY M TALBOT Husband and wife graphic novel collaboration
‘I think we’re living in the golden age of the graphic novel,’ explains veteran comics artist and writer Bryan Talbot, whose art has graced the pages of 2000AD, Batman and Sandman. ‘Every major literary festival has something on graphic novels these days.’ To prove that point, he will be appearing in Edinburgh alongside his wife, Mary M Talbot, discussing their collaborative work, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes. ‘It’s partly Mary’s story of her relationship with her own father, James S Atherton, an eminent Joycean scholar,’ he notes. ‘The other half is a biography of Lucia Joyce, James Joyce’s daughter.’ Mary saw the book as a continuation of her academic
work but in a new format. ‘It was contrasting two different periods showing the social expectations of girls, their life choices, career options and how much they changed,’ she says. ‘Being married to one of the developers of the graphic novel format obviously helped. He suggested having a go at a script, the idea being that he illustrate it. It was a completely new venture for me exploring the same gender issues but in a different medium.’
Bryan chips in: ‘We discussed it each step of the way; usually with a collaboration it ends with the writer sending the artist the script, and that’s it. Whereas me and Mary live in the same house.’ (Henry Northmore) ■ 24 Aug, 3.30pm, £7 (£5).
JAMES MEEK Why book festivals matter
James Meek’s upcoming novel, The Heart Broke In, is billed as ‘a seductive drama full of scandal, dilemmas, love and sacrifice’. Coupled with his previous form, the acclaimed The People’s Act of Love and We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, the Charlotte Square audience is in for a treat with this launch event.
Meek’s thoughtful and diverse journalism – including writing from Iraq and about Guantanamo Bay – has won a number of awards, including Britain’s Foreign Reporter of the Year. As a student he took an important lesson from James Kelman’s short story ‘Not Not While The Giro’, that ‘great writing wasn’t something happening long ago or far away but right here, right now’. Why exactly are book festivals important? One wonders if they reinforce that ‘right here’ moment, the
immediacy of being in contact with one’s readers. ‘Being invited is nice for a writer because it makes them feel wanted.’ However, Meek seems pleasantly surprised by readers’ interest in meeting fiction writers. ‘You’d have lots of questions for a writer of non-fiction, and you’d want to listen to a poet as you’d listen to a musician, but novelists? There should be at least one event where the audience consists of 100 novelists and there are three people on stage who have never written anything but have read hundreds of novels. The novelists would have to listen to them being interviewed, and would get to ask them questions afterwards.’ Meek fans would argue that an hour spent meeting the man behind such powerful prose, with a new book
out to boot, will be an hour well spent. (Peggy Hughes) ■ 27 Aug, 6.30pm, £10 (£8).
23 Aug–20 Sep 2012 THE LIST 103
TOP 5
SPORTS NOVELS As Chris Cleave brings his Olympics-based novel, Gold, to the Book Festival Brian Donaldson kicks off the search for some sporty fic- tion
The Damned United David Peace upset Brian Clough’s family with his ‘fiction based on fact’ take on the 44 days the idiosyncratic man- ager spent in charge of a Leeds United team which still pined for former boss Don Revie. Later made into a pretty decent film with Michael Sheen as Cloughie. Double Fault Before Lionel Shriver hit the big time with We Need to Talk About Kevin, she served up this tale of a tennis-playing married couple who become far too competitive about their various successes on and off court.
There’s a Girl in My Hammerlock Jerry Spinelli’s 1991 novel for young adults features Maisie Potter, a girl who tries out for her school wrestling team in order to get close to Eric Delong. But soon she discovers that her passion for grapples and full nelsons far outweigh her feelings for a silly boy.
End Zone Don DeLillo’s second novel is somewhat lightweight in comparison to his later deadly serious works. Its narrator, Gary Harkness, frets about nuclear annihilation and girls while trying to hold down his position on his school’s American football team. Dead Cert We could have picked any number of Dick Francis books set in the world of horse rac- ing, but this 1962 one was his debut in the field. When jockey Alan York unexpectedly wins a race, he suspects sabotage being committed in his favour, but his search for the truth might uncover a few dark secrets. ■ Chris Cleave, 25 Aug, 2pm, £10 (£8).