Authors Electric

I'm halfway through one of the few novels I can unequivocally call beautiful - musical writing, unsparing and heart-rending at the level of Toni Morrison, A.S. Byatt, or Vikram Seth. It happens when lyric poetry is fashioned into narrative prose without losing lucidity. No surprise given that the author, Ocean Vuong ( Vương Quốc Vinh ), is a prize winning poet. From Penquin, 2019; this is his debut novel. The title conveys its poetry: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous . It's a Vietnamese American's paean to his war damaged, semi-literate immigrant mother, written as letter to her that she'll never read - a familiar therapeutic device raised to high art. It's easy to read and difficult to take in some of its graphically descriptive passages of war and reflections on war, racism and homophobia. I know writers who'd kill for a title like that. I think about Amadeus . I muse over his memoirist novel's seamless, rhythmic sentences with a mixture of admiration ...

Being an autodidact, I was not aware until a few weeks ago that Charles Dickens had written five Christmas novellas in the 1840s, not just " A Christmas Carol " - all, he averred, with "a strong moral message."  Most UK schoolchildren probably know the other four as " The Chimes ," " The Cricket on the Hearth, " " The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain " and " The Battle of Life ." Each of them delivers, as Dickens put it, "a strong moral message" and all but the last come with supernatural twist. I came across this jolly factoid cluster while researching an idea for a sequel to my own Christmas novella: " Milagro on 34th Avenue ." That 2015 novella, about which I've written here previously , gives homage to my favourite Christmas movie - Miracle on 34th Street (particularly the 1947 original with Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara and little Natalie Wood, directed by playwright George Seaton). I ...

Every November when holiday decorations start to twinkle from street lamps and shop windows, I think about getting my crimson costume out of mothballs and suiting up again. Yes, I was – and still am in many ways – Santa Claus, or a Santa Claus , anyway. Ho ho ho. I'd like to say that I became a professional St. Nick out of Christmas spirit, fondness for children, elfin yearnings or as a writer in pursuit of a good, first-person story. Truth is, as in many tales, it was out of desperation. My trip to the North Pole started at the turn of this new century as I pushed past my sixth decade on planet Earth. As you may recall, the third millennium's opening act proved a great disappointment all around. No flying cars. George W. Bush, arguably America's worst president and certainly the stupidest, was handed the White house by its conservative crony majority. Horrific terrorist attacks; followed by ginned up wars: We all know the sorry history. At least the millennium ...

I was interviewed earlier this month by Anneli Purchase for her blog Anneli’s Place, and I thought I would share the interview with all my Authors Electric friends. You can see the original interview here at Anneli’s Place .   The questions are all about Christmas, and here are my responses to her questions. 1. Do you celebrate Christmas? Amy with her Santa sack - You can see she's a reader! I have Christmas dinner with my son and daughter-in-law at their house, but I have a post-Christmas dinner in January to which all the family are invited. There is always a Christmas story about Santa coming a cropper at Christmas time and having to leave a Santa sack with granny for the younger members of the family (there’s only 1 child eligible for it now). One year Santa tripped up and broke his ankle, another year he got lost, then there was the year he was arrested before he could make all his deliveries. And, of course, we can’t forget the year he got legless on mu...