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On this episode we speak to Alejandro Zambra about his latest book, Childish Literature; a chronicle of early fatherhood. Written in a 'state of attachment', it is a beautiful collection of roaming essays, poetry and short stories - that show how the birth and growth of a child changes not only the present and the future but also reshapes our perceptions of the past.
We also hear from Alejandro's close friend and translator Megan McDowell on the process of their working relationship and her role in bringing this graceful, funny and poignant account of parenthood into being.
'Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder.'
Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch
Childish Literature is published by Fitzcarraldo@fieldzine
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Two suitably spooky novels on this episode.
First up, Erin E. Adams and her debut, Jackal. Published in the UK by Dead Ink Books and set in contemporary Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Jackal is the story of one woman’s determination to uncover the truth around the disappearance of a number of young black girls. A taught, psychological thriller, Erin’s skill is undoubtedly in underscoring the existent horror within US society today.
'A tight, thought provoking novel that transcends genre'
Los Angeles Review of Books
'Erin E.Adams makes me proud to be a psychological thriller writer.'
Gillian FlynnThen, Edith Holler. Set at the turn of the 20th century, within the confines of the Holler theatre in Norwich this the story of 12 year old Edith and her bloody battles with the sinister figure of Mawther Meg. Cursed to never leave the theatre and in thrall to her own domineering father, it is the tale of a young writer finding her own voice and a deeply personal love letter to the arts.
'Umissable'
Olga Tokarczuk'Delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical.'
Eleanor Catton@fieldzine
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Manglende episoder?
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On this episode we speak to poet Raymond Antrobus about his recently published collection Signs, Music. Comprised of two extended sequences Signs, Music centres on both the imminence and the realisation of a new and overwhelming love. At times compulsive, at others reflective it captures the trepidation and courage of early parenthood.
But, more than that, Signs, Music asks us to consider the worlds we create for each other, to question the conditions we place on the love that we offer and to somehow re-find the wonder we once had for the world when we were children ourselves.@fieldzine
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As the film adaptation of Starve Acre is released we speak to Andrew Michael Hurley about the origins and evolving life of his much loved novel.
Set in the seventies, in the deceptive and unforgiving northern landscapes that fill Andrew’s work, Starve Acre is the story of a family with a bitter inheritance. Sudden tragedy leads to costly obsession and primeval forces are unearthed in an unnerving and sinister return, truly fertile ground for cinema.
Directed by Daniel Kokotaljo (who many of you will know from his fantastic feature debut Apostasy) and starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark it is the perfect night out as the seasons change and the darkness draws in.
Starve Acre is published by John Murray
'Genuinely and brilliantly disturbing.' Roddy Doyle@fieldzine
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On this episode we catch up with Rachelle Atalla to hear more about her latest novel The Salt Flats. A tale of many threads, it centres around Martha and Finn a couple who have come to find themselves at the end of their relationship. In a bid to save what’s left between them they travel to a mysterious retreat on the Bolivian salt flats as part of a group of privileged tourists.
There, they undergo a series of ceremonies to unlock the fears that separate them. But as each hallucinogenic episode unfolds the group fragments, falling deeper into themselves rather than closing the gap between them.
The Salt Flats is a story of shared guilt and sublimation that asks us to think again about who we share the world with and what it is we are running from.
‘The Salt Flats is gripping, compulsive and deeply human. Rachelle Atalla is one of the few writers whose novels I can’t put down.’ Heather Parry
‘Immersive, intelligent and tender.’ Kirsty Logan
If you enjoyed the pod please leave us a small review so others can find us and click follow or subscribe to never miss an episode.@fieldzine
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On this episode we meet Mateo García Elizondo to hear more about his debut novel Last Date in El Zapotal. First published in Mexico in 2019 it won the City of Barcelona Literature Award that year but has had to wait until 2024 to be published in English by Charco Press.
At first glance Last Date is the story of a man who’s given up on life. Already almost a ghost, he arrives in El Zapotal with enough heroin to see him through his final days of longing and despair. But as the hallucinations build and the line between life and death blurs we find something else altogether. Beneath the sadness is the unshakeable presence of the past and all the desire for life it once held. As Mateo’s translator Robin Myers writes in El Zapotal a dream surfaces. 'A dream of love, the dream for love, the dream of what it would mean for love to be enough.'
Last Date in El Zapotal is published by Charco Press
www.charcopress.com
If you've enjoyed the pod please leave us a small review to help others find us.@fieldzine
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On this episode we meet the wonderful Evie Wyld to find out more about her latest novel, The Echoes. As with Evie’s previous books, The Echoes is bold in its use of time and space, spanning generations and moving from one side of the world to the other.
It’s a book filled with thrilling misdirections - so no spoilers here friends.
We can tell you that - The Echoes is deeply moving, very funny and provocative throughout. It is a book that draws so much from the reader. A beautiful reminder of the true scale and weirdness of our lives, the mysteries that are withheld from us as we live and above all else a book that urges us to love.
If you’ve been enjoying the pod please leave us a small review to help others find us. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a future episode.
'To be able to lose means you are still living'.@fieldzine
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On this episode we speak to Ella Frears about her incredible fictional memoir Good Lord. Taking the form of a single 30,000 word email it is a genre-defying, stream of consciousness address directed toward Ava, an unsuspecting estate agent.
Ella’s writing is both fearless and full of energy, ranging widely across the common spaces of our lives to take in the wild precarity of the housing market, endemic violence towards women in the UK today and much more. Good Lord is provocative, disconcerting and very, very funny. It poses searching questions about expectation, what we allow and what we all really know.
‘All the hot women I know have Ella Frears on their bedside tables’ Sheena Patel
‘A witty, indignant and poignant look at the way our desire for a place to call home has been misshapen and distorted by the morbid pathologies of the market.’ Keiran Goddard
Good Lord is published by Rough Trade
Field is made entirely possible through the backing of our patreon supporters. Just three quid a month is all the difference. That's half the price of amazon prime and at least double the karma. If you want to get involved go to:
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On this episode we sit down with Noreen Masud to hear more about her incredible memoir A Flat Place. Shortlisted this year for both the Women’s Prize for Non Fiction and the Jhalak Prize, it is an exploration of both the flat landscapes Noreen loves and ‘the flat place’ she identifies within herself.
Taking in the Fens, the Orkneys, Morecombe Bay and more Noreen writes on the contradictions of these places, their stark beauty, immediacy and evasive nature. And through them she finds a way to explore the symptoms of childhood trauma buried deep within her.
A Flat Place is a moving and frank account of colonial legacy, neglect and forced movement. It is provocative and purposefully inconclusive. Preti Taneja's description of it as both revealing and refusing in the best ways is perfect.
In our wide ranging interview Noreen discusses de-romanticising nature writing, writing as a call to action and her ongoing work with Fossil Free Books.
A Flat Place is published by Penguin.
‘Noreen Masud fathoms the depths of flat landscapes, and their curious abilities to archive and to erase, to unsettle and to console.’ Robert Macfarlane
Music featured on this episode
The Kimba Unit - Two Voices
Ian Hawgood Upward Eyes@fieldzine
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On this episode we’re joined by Katie Hale to discuss her upcoming novel The Edge of Solitude. Set on a lone ship that's slowly drifting toward the heart of the Antarctic, it's a book which asks us to consider the risks of the planet’s future being left in the hands of a few insanely wealthy individuals.
The Edge of Solitude is a story of ambition, principle and above all fallibility that foregrounds our current climate emergency in the near future. A time of hubris and disappearance.
The book came from a trip which Katie took to Antarctica in March 2020 and maps the complicated legacy and geopolitics of the region.
FAQ: What is the Field Ramble theme tune?
Y Gwydd by Huw Marc Bennett@fieldzine
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On this episode we meet Lara Haworth to discuss her wonderful new novel Monumenta. It tells the story of Olha Pavic whose house has been requisitioned by Belgrade city council. They aim to bulldoze it and build a monument to an unspecified massacre in its place.
Three architects pay Olga a visit in turn pitching their ideas for the monument that will replace her family home. The novel is in turns searching and surreal, but always a tender portrayal of a family moving through the flood of a nation’s history.
Monumenta explores ideas of a contested past and loss and is part of a wider European project.
Monumenta is published by Canongate on July 4th
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To mark the publication of its paperback edition, this episode is a discussion with Octavia Bright around her wonderful memoir, This Ragged Grace. Published last year, many of you will already know it as an unsparing yet hopeful navigation of unravelling and recovery. It is a deeply human piece of work that asks us to consider the value of ambivalence and the acceptance we can offer ourselves. A book that remains long after reading with much to say about the cycle we're bound in.
'To love is to welcome the spectre of loss, to grieve is to summon the spirit of love.'
'Deep and beautiful' Deborah Levy
'Smart and tender and honest' Emilie Pine
Big thanks to The Kimba Unit for the use of their song Two Voices.
If you'd like to subscribe to & support Field just go to www.patreon.com/fieldzine to get involved.@fieldzine
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Two wonderful books on this episode. First up we hear from Elizabeth O' Connor about her incredible debut novel Whalefall. Set on a remote island off the coast of Wales in the run up to World War Two it is a story that maps the tension between home and the hope that exists in a young heart for a life of their own. We loved this book, the island is as wild & windswept as you'd want and the themes of imposition and the violence of 'progress' felt so timely. Do look it out, it's brilliant.
Kevin Barry needs little introduction. Booker long-listed author of Irish number 1 best seller Night Boat to Tangiers, The Heart in Winter is his fourth novel and is as much fun as you'd expect. Set in 1891, Butte Montana it follows the thunderbolt love affair of Tom Rourke and Polly Gillespie. If stolen horses, psychedelics, badlands, and a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are your thing (and they are ours) then you're going to love this.
Whalefall is published by Picador and is available now
The Heart in Winter is published by Canongate on June 6th
Huge thanks to Huw Marc Bennett, Ian Hawgood & Nathan Salzburg for their use of their incredible music.
Why not subscribe to and support Field - @ www.patreon.com/fieldzine@fieldzine
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On this episode we meet Will Burns to hear about his latest poetry collection Natural Burial Ground. Many of you will know Will from his fantastic (lockdown set) novel The Paper Lantern, a portrait of a transforming social & physical landscape during the strangest of years. It is a book flooded with new found time unlike Natural Burial Ground. Instead there, Will’s voice is open to the complexities and trials of loss. Both books though urge the reader to look again at the wider world and the moment they find themselves in and are huge recommends.
We also hear from Kevin Boniface who reads from his brilliant collection of short stories, Sports and Social. Set in a small Yorkshire town they are written with the eye of someone who sits at the heart of their community, mapping it’s intricacies, in beautifully observed, deeply humane writing.
Sports and Social is published by Blue Moose Books. Natural Burial Ground is published by Corsair Press and The Paper Lantern is published by W&N. All books are available either at the authors or publishers websites as well as all good independent bookshops, so do check them out.
Will Burns - www.willburns.co.uk Kevin Boniface - www.bluemoosebooks.com
Huge thanks as ever go to Huw Marc Bennett for the use of his song Y Gwydd and to Ian Hawgood for the use of I'm Not Sure We Belong@fieldzine
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On this episode we meet up Vida Adamczewski and Catherine Prasifka.
First up, Vida to discuss Amphibian her vividly inventive short story collection. It is provocative storytelling infused with a radical compassion that finds voice in new places and reimagines the body as a territory, a swamp we are invited to wallow in by the cover. Amphibian is published by the wonderful Toothgrinder press - www.toothgrinder.co.uk - Do search out them out and get yourself a copy.Many of you will know Catherine Prasifka from her startling debut None of This is Serious. Her latest novel This is How You Remember It chronicles the rapid encroachment of technology into her unnamed narrator’s life. From seemingly innocuous video games and early teenage encounters with porn to the compulsive tyranny of social media it explores the impact of this technology on a generation that have known little of life before its emergence.
Thanks to Huw Marc Bennett and Ian Hawgood for the use of their music.
If you enjoyed the episode please hit the subscribe button or leave us a review.
Big love x
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On this episode of the Ramble we meet Richard Norris to hear about his memoir of a lifetime in music, Strange Things Are Happening. The book spans the entirety of Richard’s career from an early pivotal meeting with John Peel, via the birth of Acid House to Californian adventures with Joe Strummer. But Strange Things Are Happening is much more than a series of anecdotes.
At its heart are a series of reflections on forty years of creative practice, a lifetime of collaborations and innovations in music that have brought countless people together. It is written with a rare grace, never shying from accounts of relationships imploding or ideas that don’t make it. But above all else there is a deep sense of love here for the creative act and a gratitude for a life well lived.
Strange Things Are Happening is published by White Rabbit Books and is a huge recommend.
Richard Norris lived the 20th century and beyond like no one else and this is one of the truly great eyewitness accounts of the heroic years of the counterculture.'
David Keenan@fieldzine
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On this episode we speak to author Niamh Mulvey about her upcoming debut novel The Amendments. Many of you will know Niamh from her short story collection Hearts and Bones. (Head back to episode 6 of the pod if not to hear our interview with her shortly after H&B’s publication.) With The Amendments (published by Picador on April 11th) Niamh takes the titular story from the collection and crafts it into what is a beautifully wrought novel.
Set between London and Ireland The Amendments spans the lives of three generations of women, mapping the waining impact of powerful institutions on their lives. Although the plot is at stages particular to Ireland, there is a universal quality to the struggles Nell, Dolores and Brigid meet that is all too familiar.
Niamh’s is a rare voice. In a world that so often only speaks with unthinking certainty she writes bravely with rare nuance and compassion. The result is an unsparing, human and ultimately hopeful novel that asks us to embrace the world in all its contradictions and ambiguity. The Amendments is a huge recommend and one to watch through-out the year. If you’re close to any of these lovely places Niamh will be speaking there on these dates, so head along:
Foyles, Charing Cross Road 20th April (with Sinéad Gleeson and Elaine Feeney)
Phlox Books, London 24th April (with Tomiwa Owolade)
Waterstones, Manchester 25th April
The West Kirby Bookshop, 26th April
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On this episode we hear from Sinéad Gleeson about her upcoming debut novel Hagstone. Set on a rugged island somewhere in the wild Atlantic it centres around the life of Nel an artist who draws inspiration from the landscape, folklore and unexplained phenomena that surround her. The island is also home to a reclusive community of women, the Inions, who task Nel with the creation of a new artwork, a request that leads her to uncover truths both about them and herself.
If you’ve read Sinéad’s essays or know her work as an editor then Hagstone is exactly as you’d imagine. Thought provoking, unafraid and above all else a work of great story-telling. It was great to get the chance to sit down with her and hear how the novel came into being. And, along the way, we also had the chance to look back at her essay collection Constellations, discuss the incredible energy of the Irish literary scene and the enduring presence of Maeve Brennan.
Hagstone a huge recommend and is published in just a couple of weeks by 4th Estate on April 12th
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On this episode we meet Balsam Karam to hear about her latest novel The Singularity. Set in an unnamed coastal town the story follows the impact of one woman’s death on another. It is a study of loss, migration and motherhood and a book that remains with you long after you’ve put it down.
Through bold formal experimentation Balsam builds a language of post trauma, moving from separate narratives that co-exist on the same line to episodic, crystalline remembering. This is definitely a book for those who’ve read and loved Claudia Rankine’s Citizen.
At its heart are searching questions about who we choose and choose not to see in society. And at a time when violence is so breezily explained away in our wider public discourse, The Singularity asks us to consider the depths and complexity of a single life and lasting impact of its loss.The Singularity is published by Fitzcarraldo and is available now.
Thanks to Ian Hawgood (Tides) and Huw Marc Bennett (Y Gwydd) for the use of their beautiful music.
If you enjoyed our conversation with Balsam please leave us a review and subscribe where you get your podcasts to never miss an episode.@fieldzine
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On this episode of the Ramble, an interview with Magogodi oaMphela Makhene in which we discuss her stunning, debut short story collection, Innards. Set in Soweto (where Magogodi was raised) her stories map the lives of a small group of residents living under and after apartheid.
By turns shockingly violent and deeply funny Innards is beautiful wrought from the first page. It is fiction that lays bare the enduring nature of trauma and celebrates the capacity of people to pursue life amid daunting realities.
There is so much to love about Magogodi’s work, but for us, above all else, it is her determination that the reader come to her. Every story is told in a blend of the languages of Soweto. They are transportive in the truest sense, boldly immersive and unsparing. A sprawling set of relationships, histories and politics that we are left to explore.
It was a huge pleasure to hear how this remarkable book came into being. So, next time you're staring undecidedly at some book shop shelves, definitely give this a go.
An unforgettable debut that hits with all the force of the sun. Junot Diaz
Innards is a wonder. Magnificent and haunting. NoViolet Bulawayo
A relay of fearless burning emblems Paul Harding
Huge thanks to Huw Marc Bennett for the use of his song Y Gwydd
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