Monique Roffey: A White Woman, A Green Bicycle, and the Orange Prize

It came as no surprise to me to hear Monique Roffey had been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for her novel The White Woman on the Green Bicycle. As soon as I received it for review I knew I was in for a treat and I wasn’t disappointed. Roffey is surely one of the best women novelists around and this tale of Trinidad is as irresistible as her earlier work.

Her first novel, Sun Dog, tempted me to buy it after reading an excerpt. It’s not easy for a debut novelist to have this effect, but there was something about her fragile anti-hero as he discovered his body was changing with the seasons, sprouting buds between fingers and toes in Spring. I just had to read more and find out about this shy young man working in a delicatessen and rebelling against the commune upbringing he’d had with his hippy mother.

The White Woman on a Green Bicycle tempts the reader just as Sun Dog did. The lush landscape of Trinidad makes us feel we’re right there, or want to be there. In fact the green hills of Trinidad come so vividly to life that they actually speak to the characters and seduce them or inspire their envy.

It might be hard to imagine why one of the main characters, Sabine, doesn’t want to live there and craves the London suburban home her husband promised her if she would spend a bit of time in Trinidad while he establishes himself in his job. But, from the first days, Sabine is sensitive to the feeling that Trinidad doesn’t want her, doesn’t want the white people still living like the colonialists of the past. She’s both attracted to Trinidad and its people, and also pushed out due to her compassion and awareness. She agrees with the Trinidadians but she isn’t one of them so can’t rebel alongside them.

Her husband George is different. Like the other men sent there by businesses he can be important in Trinidad, can have a decent job, buy land and build his big house, and move on from the strong love he feels for his wife at the start through a series of affairs as the decades become more permissive. Gradually Sabine realises he will never keep his promise to take her home – this is his home. Her children are Creole and love the island, and she’s the only disappointed one: the one who doesn’t ever feel she fits in.

Roffey’s expertise is in telling this story from the point of view of both characters, Sabine and George, and keeping the reader’s empathy for both of them. In fact, we can tell that their love for each other has somehow survived. At the start of the book they’re both old and resigned to what their life has been, having given up on what they had hoped for, so I’ve given away none of the plot.

Instead of making the reader wait to see what happens we start at the end of their lives and the book lets us see back into various details. The first half of the novel is from George’s perspective, as an old man, wanting somehow to redeem himself in his wife’s eyes. The second half is told by the young Sabine from the time of her arrival on the island through the first decades of their marriage.

I particularly enjoy a book that tells me about the history of a country that I hadn’t known about, and Roffey does this in a masterful way. Not long after Sabine and George arrive the Trinidadians are roused to support the charismatic leader Eric Williams who promises to free them from the remnants of colonialism. Sabine is metaphorically seduced by him, empathising with the people, and is emotionally and physically aroused by the atmosphere he creates. I’ll say no more, and leave you to discover how Roffey weaves politics, landscape, the personal and the public figures so that the bigger picture and the smaller picture somehow work together.

If I have a criticism it’s that at times Roffey’s style can follow the day-to-day in such a realistic way that it’s possible to leave the book down and pick it up again weeks later. This happens in some chapters during the first half where we see George’s view of the marriage and Trinidad. Having said that, even his account is interspersed with vivid scenes including the beating of a black teenager by the local police that had me on the edge of my seat.

Once the story moves to Sabine’s perspective I couldn’t get enough of it. There’s always a risk when a novelist tells a story through two different viewpoints that the reader will prefer one to the other. Roffey has imagined life through the experience of both George and Sabine so well that it still feels like a major achievement, and no doubt many male readers will empathise more with George.

Compassion is a quality I look for in a novelist and Roffey certainly has it. She has written so that we can understand the history of Trinidad and this particular marriage, and she has done it without allocating blame so that we understand the reasons for the failures of individuals and even Eric Williams. The characters come to life in our minds and we remember them as if we knew them, and it’s as if we’ve been to Trinidad or want to go. It’s a novel that will stay in the mind like a memory of a real experience, and I highly recommend it.

NaPoWriMo is Here - Time to Write a Poem a Day

April is National Poetry Writing Month - or NaPoWriMo. I'll be attempting to write a poem a day, and not doing any editing or rewriting once I move on to the next day. Impossible to write a good poem like this? Well, it's how Robert Browning wrote Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. During a period of writers' block he decided to write a poem a day and this fabulous poem came in the first few days.

I've registered the Written Word Ning as an official NaPoWriMo group site so people can post their daily poems on the Forum there. Some are already posting and it's a helpful way to share and encourage each other through NaPoWriMo. You can also register yourself individually with the website where you'll be posting poems, or you can do it more privately.

It's helping me to get some poems out there which have been brewing in my head a little too long. So many other vital tasks take all the hours in the day and those poems linger inside. I'm glad April will be a month to prioritise poetry, and if you'd like to join in on the Written Word to share your daily poems you'll find it on http://www.writtenword.ning.com Click Forum on the toolbar and you'll see the NaPoWriMo poems.

I'm off for a break by the sea for a while and will post all my daily poems when I get back.

The Start of a New Publishing Company

In these days of social networks we’re in the habit of saying what we’re doing each day, so it feels especially hard to keep a big secret. Every day my news is that I’m working on a new publishing company due to be launched, reading the submissions, making decisions on which will be the first books to be launched and really enjoying reading the fiction, poetry, short stories and nonfiction sent to me.

But of course I can’t say who the first authors are until we sign the contracts. I shouldn’t even say the company name or who my business partner is until we’ve signed that partnership agreement. It’s all imminent and I’m on all my social networks waiting for the moment when I can reveal all. That moment shouldn’t be too long.

It may seem like an unusual time to start a publishing company, with the recession affecting the business so seriously. There are reasons why I’m doing this now with my partner (I always feel I have to add ‘professional’ to that these days as the word has been given such a different meaning). It has long been my plan to start a publishing company, so when I was approached by a partner with many years of experience and skills I particularly admire I knew it was time to move ahead and do it.

There are other reasons why I would have thought of starting a publishing company now, even if it hadn’t been a plan I’ve been formulating for years. With the recession authors are being left without outlets for poetry and short stories as well as fiction, nonfiction and other forms. Even established authors have lost their publishing companies. This can’t go on.

Authors need to find a publisher and then concentrate on working on their next book knowing that it has a home. They can’t be struggling to find a new publisher when their efforts should be going into writing. The publishers are doing a fantastic job, but we need more outlets as the companies all seem to have long waiting lists of two or even five years.

Of course this means that, as publishers, we need to be able to keep going so that we can offer a secure place. My partner is keeping me to a strict business plan and I know we can go forward and offer this outlet to authors. He also has excellent experience on the production side and his graphics are wonderful. This leaves me free to do what I do best, which includes editing and finding talented authors.

This week I’ve been reading the novel and the poetry collection which should be our first two books, both by authors who have been previously published and whose work I have long admired. I couldn’t put their books down, which is a great sign, and can’t wait to see them launched so that others can enjoy them.

This is the realisation of an important dream for me and fills me with excitement. That thrill is tempered by the need to work on this professionally, to progress with my partner at the type of work we have both done for years. This way authors will have a place for their poetry, short stories, fiction, nonfiction and plays, and readers will be able to get their hands on some excellent books. We aim to publish 10 books in the first year and submissions are mainly by invitation at the moment while we cope with the task of setting it all up.

I’ll be adding blogs about the steps we’re taking as it will be of interest to many of you to hear about the birth of a publishing company in detail.

Camden and Lumen Poetry on Facebook

There’s now a Facebook group for Camden and Lumen Poetry. This has been set up in response to feedback about the website, because people said they liked to be able to keep in touch online between events. This is particularly important for participants who enjoy the project but live all over the UK and beyond, and might not be able to get to London regularly.

The Facebook group will also let other people find out about Camden and Lumen Poetry and all members will be able to invite people from their contacts list. It’s such a worthwhile project to champion poetry and to help the homeless, and this should help spread the word. Of course, you're also welcome to join in with discussions on the Facebook group even if you can't get to Camden and Lumen events so long as it's all poetry or fiction-related.

It’s also possible to leave comments on the Facebook group page, and there’s a discussion forum if you’d like to raise some topics for debate. It doesn’t all have to be serious. Just introducing yourself and putting a link to your website is a great idea. Although many people at the events know each other well, a website link helps newcomers and let’s us all pass an enjoyable time reading each other’s work.

To get to the Facebook group go to the Camden and Lumen website on http://www.camdenlumen.wordpress.com and click on the link on the left of all pages. Alternatively you can search for Camden and Lumen when you’re on Facebook. Let the conversations begin!

I Am The Webmeister for Camden and Lumen Poetry

I was pleased to be asked by Ruth O'Callaghan if I could create a website for the excellent Camden and Lumen Poetry project. We were chatting after a really fun and well attended open mic yesterday where I sloshed out the wine and I was really pleased to meet a poet friend called Peter who I have only 'met' online before. He gave a great reading of his poem Jazz Sax, which will go forward for consideration for the next anthology published by Camden and Lumen. If any of you can get to these events in London I'd love to meet you.

The website is very new as I've been building it this morning and doing all the writing for it so far plus adding photos! You can see it on http://www.camdenlumen.wordpress.com and I'd appreciate a bit of feedback in the comments on the site. Forthcoming events are listed there.

Camden and Lumen Poetry is a project organised by the poet Ruth O’Callaghan. The project not only supports poetry: all proceeds go to help the Cold Weather Shelters in Camden and Kings Cross. Regular poetry readings are held in the Camden and Lumen (Kings Cross) venues, with well-known authors appearing alongside new and unpublished poets.

Publishers and magazine editors present their writers, published poets make appearances, and the events include the opportunity for audience members to read at least one poem. Poets from the floor can submit the poems they read to be considered for an annual anthology published each Spring. This gives poets at all levels the chance to appear alongside the famous names in each anthology.

Carol Ann Duffy became a patron of Camden and Lumen Poetry in January 2010, adding extra prestige to this well-established and well attended project.

The events have a warm and friendly atmosphere, with wine and soft drinks, a raffle to win a surprise parcel of books. There are also books available to buy, including some available at discount generously provided by publishers. The price of entry, the drinks bar, the raffle and other fundraising activities all go to support the Cold Weather Shelters.

Both of the venues, Camden and Lumen, have the readings in the same place where people sleep in the Cold Weather Shelters, making it a particularly special place to attend and to support poetry.

The addresses for the venues are:

Camden Poetry – Trinity United Reform Church, 1 Buck St, Camden Town, London WC1

Tube: Camden Town

Lumen Poetry – Lumen, 88 Tavistock Place, London WC1

Tubes: Russell Square , Kings Cross, St Pancras.

Paul Chowder I Love You

Sadly Paul Chowder only exists in Nicholson Baker’s latest novel 'The Anthologist', which was more like finding a soul-mate to me than finding a good read. Baker’s main characters tend to have obsessions which he follows with the attention to detail their own compulsions drive them to focus on. But Chowder is a little different to the anti-heroes of previous controversial novels who gained Baker a massive following by displaying the power to freeze women and remove their clothes, or showed us inside the minds of killers and other characters guaranteed to shock. Chowder has an addiction I could relate to: he’s a poet.

Could this be even more controversial? Are we really being asked to believe a publisher thinks a book could be marketed that concentrates on the workings of a mind that only seems to think about poetry? Was it always Baker’s devious plan to see how much we could take in his novels before assaulting us with his own true compulsion, the fanatical devotion of the poetic mind to the matters of writing and reading poetry?

Strange though it may seem, this unlikely novel will be out in summer and I certainly found it a page-turner. The plot revolves around Chowder, isolated in his house as his girlfriend Roz has quite understandably left him, trying to write the introduction to an anthology of poetry. He thinks Roz has left him because he spends the days singing along to music upstairs in his barn rather than getting down to the job of writing either the anthology or some poems of his own. Readers get the feeling her disappearance might have more to do with the fact that he can only think about poetry and his favourite women writers, particularly Mary Oliver and Sara Teasdale.

The novel opens with Chowder promising us that he will tell us everything he knows about poetry, all the tips and tricks. This is very titillating to poets or any readers who think they might find a way into understanding poetry by reading on. What follows is possibly the most realistic and detailed insight into what it feels like to be a writer that I have ever seen in a novel. Baker favours the use of first person narrative, giving a step-by-step walk through the day of his main character with tiny details included. We can hear the mouse scraping along his kitchen surfaces and see its droppings, and we can feel the corner of the poetry books he starts to sleep with for company falling and hitting his face.

Every moment is permeated with the loss of Roz and his yearning to get her back, and this is the part of the story that will appeal to readers whether or not they like poetry. Chowder is the typical man who has lost his partner by concentrating too much on his job or pastime, even though he thinks she has left because he's not productive (and women could relate to his problem too if they're devoted to their work). He believes that he could get her to come back by being able to focus and work, by turning out a bit of writing, but it’s the gentle way he remembers what it was like to reach out and touch her in bed that makes us realize what it is about him Roz would really miss and want to return to.

If I have a criticism of this novel it would be that some readers may want more about the relationship between Chowder and Roz to balance the poetry theme. Usually I like a short novel but I would have liked this one to continue for longer and enjoyed each memory of Roz, the moments he met her again, and each way he worked ideas at rekindling their relationship into his daily activities.

Not many fictional couple relationships are described in a way that makes readers wish they could have a similar experience of a long-term marriage or cohabitation, but Baker has really achieved this. As other women appear, and opportunities for a new relationship present themselves, Chowder considers each one but is never tempted away from what he really wants: the return of Roz. The way that Chowder tries to win her back by his struggle to work, making small presents, and acting calm and considerate when she dates a new man, all endear him to the reader. Empathy is so vital in this kind of novel and women readers will be wanting to reach out and hug him or find another like him.

As for tips about poetry, well there are some which are based on my own particular obsession so Baker has thought his way convincingly into the mind of a poet. Chowder wants to persuade us that previous thought about iambic pentameter is wrong, that the beat of a poem is based more on music than syllable count, and I’d go along with him on that. I won’t explain more and will leave you to find out why iambic pentameter has four beats to it if you tap your foot to the music of it, and why others are a waltz with three stresses. I’m a three-beat-to-the-line free verser myself. Chowder is also a free verse writer who wants to put the case for the superiority of rhyming poetry, which he wishes he could write better. The little designs to scan poetic lines, or to keep trying to convince us of what he means with musical notes, are very funny and exactly how I'd think about it myself.

The main joy of the poetic theme is that Chowder tells us so much about the lives and work of poets from the nineteenth century onwards, and tells it in the way we would speak of our oldest and closest friends. Like most writers he has lived with these poets through their books as if they were his nearest and dearest, and as the book progresses they appear to him in supermarkets and on the street. It’s as natural for Poe to appear to him folding underwear in the launderette as it is for his neighbour Nan to ask him round to play badminton.

Reading this made me want to reach for my own anthologies and look up all the poets he mentioned, and also the ones he so rightly says have been written out of literary history when they were taken out of the main anthologies due to modernist theories or the personal spite of selecting editors. Again, this is one of my favourite rants - the unfairness of how some poets have gone out of print because they were missed from major anthologies which are still influential. It's such fun to find an alter ego in a novel and to be able to laugh at ourselves and him.

The style is deceptively simple, the stream of consciousness talks straight to us from this perfectly understood and represented mind, we’re drawn right in and held captive by the narrative voice of Chowder from the first page to the last and I couldn’t stop until I had read it all. The humour made me laugh out loud and, over all, it was an uplifting read I’d highly recommend this summer. Poets and writers definitely shouldn’t miss it.

One question I would ask is: who is the first person narrator talking to in a book like this, as he seems to be talking to the people his anthology introduction is aimed at when it starts but he moves completely away from that to tell us why he can't write. When authors talk directly to us are they addressing the reader and is there something confusing in this approach? Perhaps the question arises in this book because the voice of Chowder starts by specifically addressing people with the offer of poetry writing tips, so we feel like his anthology readers, but we end up wondering what our role is in this conversation.

Virtual Office Brings Prizewinning Global Authors Together

I'm feeling just a little smug as the Internet proves its worth more and more for writers and publishers. Those friends telling me off for frittering away time online will just have to leave me alone. It's all worth it, it is! The online television show I'm currently preparing for broadcast is just one wonderful example of how writers from all over the world can get together online to produce something extraordinary.

I'll be interviewing authors Sequoia Nagamatsu and Ovo Adagha about the One World anthology, recently released, which not only brings together the work of international authors but was also produced by them using online meeting places. Another intriguing feature of this book is that it includes winners of prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, alongside up-and-coming authors.

They will be on the Meet an Author show, which I host, and which is another example of how the Internet works alongside face-to-face book events. The show is filmed in the virtual world of Second Life, so authors from anywhere in the world can get together to be interviewed in front of an international audience. It streams live on alternate Saturdays on http://treet.tv at 10pm UK time (2pm California time) and is then available as a recording on http://slcn.tv on the Meet an Author page. I started the show because I really enjoyed it, and it's still great fun, but I've also come to realise what a fantastic way this is for authors to reach out to a global audience.

What makes the One World venture so fascinating is the way writers all over the world have used the Internet to collaborate on it. On the show Ovo Adagha and Sequoia Nagamatsu will represent the project and speak about the development of the book, thoughts on literature on the internet, globalization/equality and concepts of space and identity in virtual worlds as well as reading selections from their own work.

Here's Sequoia Nagamatsu's description of the project: 'The collection comprises stories from 23 writers from 14 countries including Pulitzer prize winner, Jhumpa Lahiri and recent MacArthur Grant recipient and Orange Prize Winner, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie and many up and coming names.. All of the writers worked in an online office to put the manuscript together, work on design, marketing and other tasks.'

The book was launched this month at the Oxford Literary Festivalat Christ Church College, Oxford and the authors are working on other events in locales around the world including outreach and presentation to high schools in America and now Second Life and online television as well. If you're on Second Life you can come to the event or go to the venue for more information http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cookie/24/136/66 If you're not on Second Life then you can see the show on the Treet TV links above.
You can find out more at: http://www.oneworldstories.com