This gizmo is set – immovably – into the ground on an Oxfordshire hillside, a few metres from the White Horse at Uffington. I have found the Reset Button! Restore Factory Settings! I pressed it but nothing, so far, appears to have changed. Or has a transformation taken place so profound as to be beyond our capacity to apprehend it?
London, July 16th
To London: “spread out in the sun, It’s postal districts packed like squares of wheat.” “London was gritty with stale heat and swept with the whoop and shriek of police sirens, patrol cars racing down the Edgware Road. There was a message on the answer-phone in his flat, a wrong number; an old man’s voice, speaking in a papery vibrato: I …
Page 111
“The heart is joyful, and the limbs are swift and clinging; every bud of every bush is bursting into song: sweet pea, wet petal, salt and honey on the tongue.” Flirting at the Funeral, p.111
FLIRTING IN AMERICA
If you happen to be in the Pacific North West this autumn, come and see me at WORDSTOCK, Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR – October 5th/6th Good times guaranteed!
HAY TRANSCRIPT
“The novel certainly came out of the optimism of the sixties and seventies, the feeling that the world might really be about to change, that anything was possible, that the old models of social, political, cultural life could be thrown out and utterly re-imagined; that there would be a series of concentric revolutions that would transform relations of class, …
FROM CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“People slip away,” Howard said. “You have to hold on to them, or they slip away.” He walked through the vaulted archway of the gate-house into the dazzling afternoon light. “You can’t hold on to them,” Matty said, hanging back inside the key-hole of the arch. “They slip away anyway.” There was a slight resonance in her voice, a hollow echo. Howard turned, looking …
WORDSTOCK 2013
If you missed me at Hay in June, you can catch me at Wordstock in October! The Wordstock Festival takes place at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, USA, October 3rd-6th. And I’m going to be there!
FULL AUDIO
View PostJon Day on Flirting
View PostFlirting and Cillian Press
Flirting at the Funeral is of course published by Mark Brady at Cillian Press, world’s most innovative indie publisher!
Flirting at Hay in audio
Chris Keil discusses his latest novel “Flirting at the Funeral” at HAY 2013 with NWR editor Gwen Davies
PARIS
Paris, in early summer. Where else could you want to be?
More Hay 2013
Big thanks to everyone involved in Hay Festival 2013, and to all the lovely people who came to see me. What a nice occasion!
HAY 2013
Fabulous day at Hay Festival yesterday. The sun shone down like honey; the event-organisers were friendly and welcoming, and I had a lovely, attentive audience for my hilarious encounter with the Herr Professor!
INVITE
Four days away from my gig at Hay with Flirting at the Funeral! Your invitation is on the plate!