Books & Authors : February '13 - Book Club Selection - 'The Sound of Loneliness' by Craig Wallwork

Just picked up my copy... looking forward to the discussion of this! The description reminds me more than a bit of Hamsun's Hunger... That one got right into my head and wrecked what there was to wreck.  Always appreciate that.

I don't know. We planned the release date way before this book discussion, I'm afraid, so I can't speed it up, but since it's already available on Amazon for astute "early birds" I'm pretty sure enough copies will be there for those who want it... I can ask Craig if he wants to give out some PDFs to those who want it early, too... It cuts into sales, which is fine with me, but it does have the effect of the release itself being weakened.

yeah, craig is one of my favorites authors. i actually published a few of his stories back in the COLORED CHALK days. pick this up, people. so good. seriously.

I actually haven't read any of Craig's work before. But I have acquired it, and am stoked to read it.

Just received my copy from Amazon. Looking forward to digging into this one.

I'm going to carry a copy around in case I ever decide to commit any major crimes. ;)

Adam and Jack - THANKS for jumping in!

Nik - Had to look TSOL up.  Completely bypassed me that band. Hope B&N get it to you in time. 

Laramore - Carrying books around got Mark Chapman in a lot of shit.  Just saying. ;)

Thanks for reading the novel, Mr King.  I'd like to talk about the Fante comparison, which should not be interpreted as me besmirching your good name, or any other who draws the same comparison. :)

It would be foolish of me to try and argue the case against Fante.  It was an influence on the novel, but not the only one.  Daniel (the protagonist) was reading Ask the Dust in the Team Room, comparing himself to Bandini as he gazed upon the waitress, wondering if she could be his Camilla, so yes, I've heard the comparison before to Bandini, and Holden Caulfield too.  As soon as you set upon a novel of this ilk, those names are going to come out of the woodwork.  In truth, it's difficult not to make comparisons when you're writing about a disillusioned writer, struggling with life and trying to balance his delusions of grandeur and ambition against the reality of hardship and hunger.  All that said, Fante alluded to Knut Hamsun's unnamed character in Hunger to be an influence on him when he created Bandini.  I'm sure you know of the novel, but Sult (1890; Hunger) is Hamsun's breakthrough novel about a young writer struggling to maintain his dignity while trying to survive in a desolate and lonely world.  Henry Charles "Hank" Chinaski, Bukowski's alter-ego and main protag of Ham on Rye and Factotum, was hugely influenced (or given life) by Bandini.  Again, in Chinaski we have another Dostoyevskiesque hero, or anti-hero with a general disdain for society, possessing a cynical sense of humour, but underneath is quite vulnerable.

“Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn't become so obvious yourself.” ― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

Then you have novels like The Loser's Club by Richard Perez, most of Dan Fante's books (Mooch, Chump Change et al) and Hating Olivia by Mark SaFranko, a story about Max Zajack who is consumed by his desire to write like the greats, to deliver something worth reading; something that will leave a stain.  They are all writers' novels and as such, if you look at the reviews and opinions of the readers, they will all have comparisons made from the genealogy of the aforementioned.  I think there's an interesting discussion here in terms of influences, and how many characters or novels are truly original, or are they just the bastard children of forgotten fathers.  maybe for another time.

What I'm saying is, I'm flattered and honoured to have such a comparison, but there's no way to shake off the ghosts of the past.  We can only hope, or least I can only hope, that someone who has never read Fante, but will read this novel, may go on to read Ask the Dust or Road to Los Angeles.  Likewise, after they're done with them, move onto SaFranko, or Perez, or Dan Fante.

 
I'm glad you kept with it to see the subtle change too in Daniel's character, how he became more introspective, less concerned with external observation and more human self-reflection.

Again, THANK YOU so much for reading.  Really appreciate it.

the details were the thing for me in this - Emma's shoes and the way she felt about them. and the way Daniel would openly and contemptuously list the things he hated about his fellow town-dwellers, the things that made them ignorant and unlike him - then very subtly these things would appear just a bit here and there in his own behavior, totally unnoiced and barely even noted by him. and that was well-done, the examples would flit by without Daniel's notice but enought for ME to pick up on, and that's tricky, to let the reader gain insight about a first-person narrator that the narrator doesn't have without making it obvious that's what's being done.

Did you miss his Facebook signed copy giveaway? I'm the only one that entered with the details you described, but I did it and won nonetheless. Pretty cool for a crappy photograph.

I'm cool with whatever suggestions are made, and yeah, Laramore will have a signed copy of the book winging its way overseas next week.

Eli - man, I'm still reeling from that wonderful review over at Goodreads, so glad you dug the novel.  Thanks again.

Manda - You're so right about the smaller details in books, and how they are implanted into the reader through more subtle means than just saying, "hey, LOOK at me! I HATE people!!!" I remember reading And the Ass Saw the Angel by Cave and falling in love with the language and the pace and beat and everything damn little thing about it.  Then, a year or so later I'm writing a short story about a town where it begins raining and doesn't stop for five years.  And here I am, thinking this is original, and how the rain, the presence of it, the way it forces the family to reflect on each other, or endure the suffering mete out my proximity and familiarity, when all the while it was an idea planted in my head by Nick Cave.  A good writer is more sharecropper, a farmer tilling the fields of the reader's imagination, planting seeds and then letting them germinate, grow or perhaps die. It shouldn't be about throwing the story or the actions or the emotion at the reader, but giving them a worn plimsoll to illustrate poverty, introversion, discomfiture, or that she is a girl aware of herself, and how she does not want to be seen as the clothes she wears. 

So the discussion is official, right?

Anything you want me to elaborate on, or answer, just let me know.

I blame Barnes and Noble for my lack of participation in this discussion. Fuckers still haven't delivered my books.

I'm reading this right now. Thoughts to come later. For the moment, I'm brushing up on my British slang.

Thanks, guys. I'm slighty intimidated that Gordon is reading it. I've used humour in the book, and to offer it up to Gordon maybe like cooking an omelette for Anthony Bourdain.

Something I want to know is how Craig feels about differentiating the author from the character in first-person. I struggled with this in my first novel, where the character was not supposed to be skilled at writing, yet it was filled with clever insights and descriptions he likely wouldn't have possessed. I was always worried about outwriting my narrator (or being unfairly judged myself if I "dumbed him down" too much, being that his prose was my own and it was my only book people had to go on). In TSoL, Crabtree is a hack writer who almost never spends any time at his craft, despite being surrounded by potential/interesting story ideas and characters in his life. The irony. I liked how he eventually came to realize this. Even though he's supposed to suck, the book itself is quite good, especially in its descriptions. So while he's putting all his hope for success into this one lame short story, the reader's going, "Dude, you're writing a novel; I'm reading the thing." I thought there might be some references to that process somewhere in the novel, what happened in between, how he ended up at the present. There are signposts throughout as to the era the story takes place in, but only a few montions (that I recall) late in the book letting us know these things happened a long time ago, suggesting a present-day memoir. Thoughts?

Interesting that you picked up on that, Gordon. You're right that there's the risk of writing about a writer who is poor at writing, especially when told via first-person narrative and the writing is good. Do you dumb it down, like you say, or write is so it's engaging and rich with humour and honesty? If it is a *Mise en abyme (that visual experience of standing between two mirrors, seeing an infinite reproduction of one's image) it does infer that the narrator, Crabtree, has progressed as a writer and this transcription of his life, self-reflection, is the fruits of his labour. As you said, his social commentary, prose and structure of sentence, illustrate perfectly he is a good writer. However, I never meant this as a novel within a novel, but more like what Pete said, where Crabtree is narrating his exploits and life-story to an invisible person, the reader. In fact, it's more **Roman à clef, a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. A lot of the incidents and people in the novel are real, and Crabtree is just documenting them, delivering his inner monologue to the invisible reader.  If that makes sense? I never saw Ask the Dust, Ham on Rye, or Lolita as an "intended" or "pre-designed" novel, but more novels about writers. The Sound of Loneliness is a novel about a writer, not a writer who had wrote a novel called The Sound of Loneliness. I think On the Road is more a novel about a writer who wrote about his life that he turned into a novel. Off the top off my head, that's the only one I can think of.

Timeline is, if memory serves, 1991 (?), then skips 5 years to 1996. That's it, in theory, but Crabtree could be narrating his past in the present day, 2013. Or, just after leaving the Agecroft. I've said this elsewhere, but TSoL forms part of a trilogy. I've just started the first one, which will be set in 1983. The final instalment will be present day, when Daniel maybe gets his "big break".

Meant to ask, Drew Ballard (or was it Tobe Mohr?); was there a time you thought, maybe I should have dumbed down the prose a little to fit with the character, or like you said, were you keen not to compromise on style or skill in case it read poorly? Never really read a novel where the narrative is completely dumbed down. Even Haddon's Curious Incident had moments of genius writing and observation, even though the text was very flat and simple.

The 90s references were subtle. Mentioned The Gulf War and Thatcher. There are lots of geographical landmark shifts that you'd only know if you lived there. The main reason for setting it in 1990 was because the climate and economical state of the UK was almost identical to what it is now. High unemployment. Recession. War. Too, I needed that 5 year gap to play around with. 

You may have noticed this, and I'm quite sure a lot of other people have too, but I know writers that are GREAT in social observations and storytelling in emails, posts on forums, and replies/tweets/status updates, but when you read their books, or short stories, you don't see any of that magic or passion or adroitness found in their non-prose. Crabtree is like that. At the time of writing Love is a Gazelle he is a terrible writer. Unpublished. One story. However, he could, even then, tell you all these great anecdotes or social observations. But putting them all down in a story was beyond him. That carries on throughout the novel.  

And yes, THAT story! It sounded shit when he described it. And then to base his whole career on that one story, or believing it is great, even though it was rejected from a local rag, proves his ego and bravado was hindering his potential.  Then, during his time with Melissa, he gets more rejections! It proves that sometimes there are people who sound like they can write, or are very knowledgable about the craft, but when it comes to actually forming a brilliant story, they just can't do it.  

And no, I'm not naming names. ;)