Toby Litt

[Martin]

Does anyone know this author? He's a young(ish) British author who has written some marvellous stuff. I've read almost everything he's written sofar, and I found out today that he's got a new book out, called Ghost Story.

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His novels:



Adventures In Capitalism: Why does Mr Kipling bake such exceedingly good cakes? Find out the answer to this and more in this journey into the epicentre of the consumer world. This is a place of weirdos and saddos, of over-indulgence in CDs and lottery tickets, and of Michel Foucault and a fluffy pink bunny rabbit.



Exhibitionism:Toby Litt's collection of shorts, starring Polly Morphous, Lee Perverse, the New Puritans and the Audioguide to the Museum of Inside-Your-Head. With more twists 'n' turns, more sex 'n' violence, more glitz 'n' glamour than ever before, Toby Litt is back...and this time it's personal.



Finding Myself: Let loose in a hothouse of subterfuge and well-kept secrets, the reader is invited to step through a maze of unreliable narration, misjudged expectations and duplicitous accomplices to arrive, after many twists and turns, at what is going on at Victoria About's Suffolk literary hideaway.



Beatniks:1995, and at a party in Bedford, Mary meets Jack and Neal, a pair of hipsters and self-confessed Beats' stuck (un)squarely in the sixties. After a Beat (not-quite) Happening' at the local library, the three of them (and Neal's cat Koko) set off in Mary's Vauxhall on a road trip to Brighton in search of literary fame and fortune. But, this is neither the time nor the place for free love, uncomplicated sex and unrestrained cool this is 1990s Britain and everything comes with a price. (Haven't read this one.)



Corpsing: A heart-thumping storyline of murder, infidelity and revenge unfolds at a restaurant in which the narrator's ex-girlfriend Lily is killed by a gunman wearing day-glo Lycra, a helmet, mirror shades and a pollution mask. The narrator receives three bullets as well, but the police tell him nothing. (My review.)



Deadkidsongs: this is a compelling and shocking journey into the dark heart of boyhood, as four boys play war games deep in the English countryside. With the death of one of the Gang (as they call themselves), the war games escalate, directed now against the adults they hold responsible for the loss of one of their soldiers. (My review.)

And his latest:



Ghost Story: When Agatha and Paddy decide to leave London and buy a house on the coast, they are full of hope for themselves and their growing family. Three months later, when the builders move out and they move in, things look very different. A personal tragedy threatens to destroy all they have carefully built up and only a small miracle, it seems, will save them.Ghost Story is a book both haunted and haunting, which asks how we can ever mourn something that hasn't lived. Emotionally resonant, beautifully crafted and ultimately redemptive, it is Toby Litt's finest, most mature novel to date.

All information courtesy of Amazon.co.uk.
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Check this guy out - it'll be worth it.

Cheers

 

[Ashlea]

sounds interesting

 

[Shade]

I have to say, on largely irrational grounds, I can't stick this guy. I'll defer to Martin who has actually read most of his books, but let me make five points:

1. His third novel, Corpsing, is almost certainly the worst book of vaguely serious intent that I have ever read. Cliched, dull, woefully badly written and hammy.

2. He was a member of a group of writers a few years ago who termed themselves the "new puritans" on the basis that they didn't go for any fancy literary stylistics, tricks, or cleverness. For me fiction is all about those three things. Twat. (anyway he has shown admirable hypocrisy in his last novel Finding Myself which was full of tricksiness)

3. If you put his books in chronological order - Adventures in Capitalism, Beatniks, Corpsing, deadkidsongs, Exhibitionism, Finding Myself, Ghost Story - you will see the worst horror of all. He is actually working his way through the alphabet with his book titles. Again: what a twat. Please don't say this means he intends to write 26 books...

4. His second collection of stories, Exhibitionism, has some of the worst titles to stories I have ever heard: "On the etiquette of eye-contact during oral sex", "Mimi (Both of Her) and Me (Hardly There At All)", "Story to be translated from English into French and then translated back (without reference to the original)"... Give me strength!

5. He's a slaphead:


What's not to hate!

 

[Wabbit]

He looks like a young Jean Luc Picard!

And what's worse, he looks like a penguin lover to me!

 

[Martin]

- I liked Corpsing.

- I don't know anything about him being a member of a group, so that has never bothered me.

- So what if he writes his books according to the alphabet? Does that make the books worse?

- I'm a sucker for short stories, and I thoroughly enjoyed both his collections. I even kinda liked the titles.

- What is a slaphead?

That said, you're fully entitled to your opinion, Shade. It's not your fault that it happens to suck.

Cheers

 

[jaybe]

I've just read 'Beatniks.'

Why I continued to read after struggling with the shallow characters, stilted writing and childish story, Lord only knows!

I did laugh, almost out loud a few times. I decided Toby Litt was writing deliberately badly in a clever, satirical sort of way.

When I finished it - I knew he wasn't!