my mother is a fish

I hated Faulkner in school. Found his stream of consciousness irritating. Ended up buying “As I Lay Dying” because it was 99p in a bargain bin a few years ago – read it again over the course of the week in St Anne’s Square because I couldn’t be bothered socialising with my coworkers over the lunch time pint.

I’m enthralled by the man. Completely. He’s my thing to go to when I really want to be inspired. I use to shy away from southern voices. I knew enough of them in my real life and to be honest, they just weren’t that interesting. I preferred Dickens (oh how I ADORED Dickens) and Tolstoy and epics from Greece and Ancient Mesopotamia. But try to write about Gilgamesh when you’re from Montcalm, West Virginia and see where it gets you.

William Faulkner’s Typewriter: photo by Gary Bridgman

Then I read ‘peart’ in that great American novel by Mark Twain, recognised it as a word my grandmother had tried to explain to me for years…and saw something I hadn’t before. These days I’m all about O’Connor, Welty, Lee, Williams.

I still read Chaucer and Solzhenitsyn. But unless Ivan Denisovich starts talking about going squirrel huntin’ up in Possumbranch, he just isn’t gonna hold the same attraction for me. No offense to Denisovich intended.