Sixty Two

Somebody likes The Scent of Cinnamon very much indeed. Want to know who? Click here.

Will this pleasure never end?

If any of you are lucky, or clever, enough to be able to read Arabic you can now enjoy The Scent of Cinnamon in translation, in the Albawtaqa Review.

For more information, click here.

Soft-selling Scent of Cinnamon

I suppose it's just possible that one or two of you out there might not already own a copy of The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories. It's all right, I don't want to know your names. All I want to do is tell you that you can now buy the prize-winning collection in paperback. It's just as big and fat and full of goodness (and a pinch of wickedness too) as it was in hardback, but it costs less! You can buy it direct from Salt at only £8.79 by clicking here.

Which means you no longer have any excuse. Right? So what are you waiting for? Come on...

The Fiction Desk interview

A couple of weeks ago I met up with Rob, the man behind one of the most interesting and wide-ranging literary blogs around, The Fiction Desk. We had an excellent lunch and talked about, among other things, writing, publishing strategies, power and casual cruelty. This is the result. And this is me standing in front of a wall on Via Ostiense in Rome, a few yards from where I work.

Cracking collection

I just want to direct your attention to a great new reader's review of The Scent of Cinnamon on Amazon UK. It's by Brummie Reader, and it's a beauty!

Now it's your turn.

Pester, pester, pester.

The poetry of the world

A great new review for The Scent of Cinnamon, from the Law Society Journal of Australia. You can read it here. Or, if the link doesn't work and you have a magnifying glass to hand, here:

Alternatively, you can click to embiggen, as Joe My God always says.

Bestsellerdom

Don't blink or you'll miss it, but The Scent of Cinnamon has made the Amazon top 100 short story list. OK, I'm 93rd, but I'm in very good company, rubbing shoulders with Somerset Maugham, Alice Munro, Henry James et al. I'm delighted!

Once upon a time and a very good time it was

Over at Eratosphere, Tim Love has kicked off a fascinating discussion on child narrators in adult fiction. As part of his thoughtful and stimulating introduction, he's quoted from interviews conducted during the Cyclone tours that Elizabeth Baines and I completed earlier this year, Elizabeth to publicise her collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World, and I (me?) to do the same with The Scent of Cinnamon. The links will take you to the Book Depository, rather than Amzaon, which needs to be taught a lesson after its appalling recent conduct. And here's a random picture of a child, in non-narrating mode, just to make the post look a little livelier. 

A sudden calm

Well, there were moments I thought I might never make it, moments in which the idea of draggging my weary wine-addled braincells across seemingly endless virtual tundra towards the temporary succour of one more virtual oasis (if that isn't too mixed a geographical metaphor) was simply too exhausting to contemplate. And then a set of new questions would arrive, and I'd read them, and be sparked by them, and think OK, let's see what I can do with these. I'm talking, of course, about my Cyclone tour, the aim of which was to sell as many copies of my collection The Scent of Cinnamon as was humanly possible without its author moving from his keyboard. I don't know whether it achieved that aim or not - though, I hope it did - but it achieved the secondary, unvoiced, aim of forcing me to think very hard about what I do and why I do it: the equivalent of an MA in creative writing without spending a penny. My thanks to all the wonderful bloggers involved, and my final thanks to my final interviewer, renaissance man, Wendell Ricketts, writer, editor of the ongoing project and anthology devoted to working-class gay writers, Everything I Have is Blue, translator of, among other things, the theatre of Natalia Ginzburg (The Wrong Door), astute and prolific reviewer, and author of one of the very few English-language Italian-based blogs that seem to live in the same Italy I live in. You can find his questions, and my answers, here. Phew.

Dropping in at Edge Hill

The penultimate leg of my Something Rich and Strange tour can be found at Rob Spence's blog, Topsyturvydom. Rob, for those of you who don't know, is a proud Mancunian, a lecturer in English literature at Edge Hill University and, with Ailsa Cox, the editor of 21: A Journal of Contemporary and Innovative Fiction, and I'm honoured to be invited. In the interview, we chat about genre, craft and what exile might involve. Talking about my story collection, The Scent of Cinnamon, Rob comments: 

"If anything is going to restore the popularity of short fiction in this country, it must be the publication of stories such as these, by turns humorous, surreal, disturbing, but always memorable." 

His last words, which I wholeheartedly endorse, are these: 

"Now, gentle reader, buy the book! "

Isak Dinesen? Yes!

Moira Crone has just reviewed The Scent of Cinnamon at The Short Review, an essential site for anyone who cares about short, or long, fiction. It's a great review and I'm thrilled, above all because I feel not only that I've been read and understood, which is always wonderful, but also, and perhaps more importantly, that I've learnt a few new things about what I do and how I do it. You can read it, and be thrilled (though perhaps slightly less than I am), here. 

This is the first time I've been compared to Dinesen. I am without words.

Coffee and Cronenberg

Just over six months ago, I wrote a rather snippy post about the way quality newspapers were as entranced by celebrity as their tabloid counterparts. The post was occasioned by a couple of reviews of first novels written by people who, regardless of their own ability, were also extremely well-connected in the literary world, and I was in a huff about how they got all the attention while poor little me other first novelists didn't. To my surprise, and joy, one of these novelists - Nick Harkaway - got in touch with me that very day to say that he agreed with me. Since then, we've been in touch frequently about all sorts of things, we've almost shared a spaghetti alla carbonara in Rome, I've read and been very impressed by The Gone-Away World (out in paperback on February 5th) and Nick has agreed to interview me on my Something Rich and Strange virtual book tour. You can find the interview here. I have a photograph of Nick holding a copy of The Scent of Cinnamon with a look of disturbingly manic glee on his face - a reaction I hope the book routinely evokes - but I have too much respect for the man, and his reputation, to reproduce it here.

(I'm still waiting to hear from Martin Amis's wife.)

Scones and tales

My seventh visit on the Something Rich and Strange tour and this time I'm in Devon, enjoying a cuppa and a couple of home-made scones with Dovegreyreader as we talk about The Scent of Cinnamon. She asks me some great questions about grief, writing habits and writers I love and I answer with alacrity and a blob of clotted cream on my chin. All is revealed here. There's also a draw for two free copies of the book, but you've already got one, haven't you? Haven't you?

Think Pink

I've just found out that Think Pink Radio of Chicago noticed my Cyclone visit to Jockohomo. Think Pink is "is dedicated to promoting queers that do things on their own–people who love this world and want to be themselves in it", which sounds pretty good to me. It had this to say about the book and the tour.

Warped!

A very interesting review of The Scent of Cinnamon, by literary blogger and novelist, the Gay Recluse (aka Matthew Gallaway), compares me with Keith Banner, a favourite of mine as regular readers of this blog will know, but someone whose work has always seemed to me to be working in a very different area from mine. What we have in common, for Matthew, is this:

Like Banner, Lambert likes to narrate from a dizzying array of perspectives — i.e., male/female, gay/straight (though he carefully avoids such terminology, thankfully) — and also like Banner, Lambert’s characters are not ones you’d like to consider friends...

The review goes on to say that:

we cannot read any of these stories without a sinking feeling that something bad is about to happen, leaving us with the question of whether the damage will be psychological, physical or some combination. 

Sounds good...

21

I'd like to welcome a new online literary journal, entitled 21. Produced by Edge Hill University, it describes itself as :

"a peer-reviewed, online critical journal exploring contemporary and innovative fiction. We are interested in cutting edge fiction from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, whether in the short story, the novel or hybrid forms; in print or hypertext. This includes all literature written in English or published as translation."

The first issue contains articles about, among others, JG Ballard, Annie Proulx and AM Homes, a valuable essay by Elizabeth Baines on Anne Enright and the 'misery memoir', and an interview with me about Little Monsters (out in paperback on 6 February), along with an extract from one of the longer stories in The Scent of Cinnamon. 

Today Scott Pack's top 10, tomorrow the world

After reviewing Little Monsters earlier this year and hosting my Something Rich and Strange virtual book tour a few weeks ago, Scott Pack has included The Scent of Cinnamon on his list of top ten books in 2008. You're a gentleman, Scott, and, of course, a discerning and gifted reader. Thanks!

French Lesson

Last blast before Christmas

John Self has done my Something Rich and Strange virtual book tour proud on his Asylum blog, where I rub shoulders with some of my favourite writers, such as James Kelman and, barely a spit away, Penelope Fitzgerald. It's thrilling to see his critical eye turn its gaze my way. You can read his review of The Scent of Cinnamon, along with the interview, here. Among other things, he compares me - favourably - with Roald Dahl's adult fiction and suggests that maybe you can have too much of a good thing...

This is my sixth Cyclone interview in six weeks and it's to the credit of my interviewers and their fabulous questions that I continue to find myself with things to say, things I didn't even know I knew until I was asked. This time I talk about the first story I ever wrote, and reflect, among other things, on why I'm still a child and why the idea of 'community' - as in gay or ex-pat - gets my goat...

Something Rich and Strange will be taking a short break to allow me to enjoy Christmas in a mindless, unexamined way, after which it kicks off once more, on 6 January with a visit to dovegreyreaderscribbles. See you there! (Don't worry, I'll still be around in the meantime, whining and so on. I'll also be posting a review of a rather extraordinary book I'm nearing the end of at the moment. Only 250 pages to go...)

Nel mezzo del cammin

Five down, five to go. The latest leg of my Something Rich and Strange tour is posted today on Vanessa Gebbie's News. I've been a fan of Vanessa's work for as long as I've been blogging (and here's the proof), well before we found ourselves rubbing shoulders in the Salt stables. So it was, as they say, both a privilege and a pleasure to answer her questions on two of the longer stories in the collection. They're both set on Mediterranean islands, so pack your sunglasses.

Next week, it's the turn of John Self at Asylum, followed by a well-earned three-week break before dovegreyreader scribbles. So while I prepare myself for their questions, you will have all the time you need to do some Christmas shopping. Vanessa has made some very wise suggestions about possible gifts...