Written for The Guardian A Borgesian Maybe-Murder Mystery Towards the end of this impressive and finely textured debut, there is a chapter entitled “What Happened to Carlos – Suspicions, Rumours, Links”. This is the only named chapter and it lists a series of variations related to the disappearance of the novel’s missing person –…
Written for Prospect Magazine: By the weekend, this grim and unhappy referendum on our membership of the European Union will have passed from our national life. And what a relief for us all that will be. It has divided us against ourselves and made enemies of friends. We have seen too much of the…
For Prospect Magazine: The first time I came to London on my own, I came to see Bob Dylan. He was playing at the Hammersmith Apollo. I had tickets for three of the shows. I remember freezing in the queues outside. I remember the stampede to get to the front when the bastards finally…
Witten for Prospect Magazine: The Komedia Kvizo had started. Perhaps this would be instructive. I had hoped to get to the heart of the matter straight away. I had hoped to re-examine the biggest question of our times—the European Union referendum—but to come at it from deep within the pan-European hinterlands of Remainia. But instead, the…
For The Guardian: I once had a discussion with my first US editor, an old-school literary titan of 40 years’ experience, on the subject of overt existential angst in the novel. Her main message was that if you’re going to do it, then you’d be better off keeping it Beckettishly short – a view, I…