Simon appleby

Teenage runaway; young stripper; writer of powerful, haunting stories. From Bad Behaviour in 1988, a story collection depicting seedy New York life, to Veronica in 2006, which follows a rollercoaster of a friendship between two women, Mary Gaitskill’s writing is often disturbing and always meticulously perceptive. In November 2021, we are pleased to publish a collection of Mary’s tender yet daring essays Oppositions, alongside striking reissues of the novella This is Pleasure, the Women’s Prize for Fiction-longlisted novel The Mare and the short story collection Don’t Cry.

In this retrospective we explore Mary’s published books and their recurring themes of feminism, relationships and sexuality.

Tell us which of Mary Gaitskill’s works you’ve read – or plan to read – over at Twitter @serpentstail and Instagram @serpentstail.

OPPOSITIONS (2021)

Oppositions is a collection of nuanced and provocative essays covering a broad range of subjects written with Mary Gaitskill’s characteristic linguistic flair. Spanning thirty years of her writing, and covering subjects as diverse as Dancer in the Dark, the world of Charles Dickens and the Book of Revelation with her classic blend of sincerity and wit, Oppositions is never less than enthralling.

‘Mary Gaitskill is willing to think about the problematic with complexity and humanity, and without taking sides or engaging in all the fashionable moral hectoring that passes for serious thought these days.’ Eimear McBride

THIS IS PLEASURE (2019; reissued 2021)

A provocative, nuanced novella about power, consent and friendship – and a masterful fictional contribution to the #MeToo debate.

Following the unravelling of the life of a male publisher undone by allegations of sexual impropriety and harassment, and the female friend who tries to understand, and explain, his actions, it looks unflinchingly at our present moment and rejects moral certainties to show us that there are many sides to every story.

‘Gaitskill achieves a superb feat. She distils the suffering, anger, reactivity, danger and social recalibration of the #MeToo movement into an extremely potent, intelligent and nuanced account.’ Guardian

Now available in a beautiful reissue.

THE MARE (2016; reissued 2021)

The Mare is Mary Gaitskill’s first novel in over a decade. Ginger is in her forties and a recovering alcoholic when she meets and marries Paul. When it becomes clear it’s too late for her to have a baby of her own, she tries to persuade him to consider adoption – but he refuses. As a compromise, they sign up to an organisation that sends poor inner-city kids to stay with country families for a few weeks in the summer, and so one hot July day eleven year old Velveteen Vargas, a Dominican girl from one of Brooklyn’s toughest neighbourhoods, arrives in their lives, and Ginger is instantly besotted.

While Velvet returns her affection, she finds the intensity of it bewildering. Velvet discovers she has a natural talent for riding and a deep affinity with the damaged horses cared for there. But when Ginger begins to entertain fantasies of adopting her, things start to get complicated for everyone involved.

‘Visceral and haunting, and the telling, with its shifting first person narrative, is nothing short of masterful’ GQ

Now available in a beautiful reissue.

DON’T CRY: STORIES (2009; reissued 2021)

A set of short stories which once again delves into the messy, broken and often out-of-control lives of ‘normal’ people. As the New York Times writes,

‘The people in Gaitskill’s stories often behave unconventionally and impulsively; they may seem to have an agency outside their author’s control, doing what not even she could expect, but they never escape her pitiless eye and meticulous hand.’

Read an extracted short story, Mirrorball 

Now available in a beautiful reissue.

VERONICA (2005; reissued in 2016)

Shortlisted for the National Book Award, Veronica is the story of the friendship between Alison and Veronica, who meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: one is a former modeling sensation, the other an eccentric middle-aged proofreader.

Over the next twenty years their friendship will encompass narcissism and tenderness, exploitation and self-sacrifice, love and mortality.  Moving seamlessly between the glamorous and gritty ’80s, when beauty and style gave licence to excess, and the broken world of the decade’s survivors twenty years later, Gaitskill casts a fierce yet compassionate eye on the two eras and their fixations.

BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO (1997)

In these stories, ‘Mary Gaitskill charts the twists and turns of emotion and desire, in fanatically analytical prose that zips along in a fever of self-consciousness that would seem loony if her observations weren’t so sane’ New York Times

Read an extracted story: Tiny Smiling Daddy

TWO GIRLS, FAT AND THIN (1991)

Mary’s first novel explores the experiences of those alienated from society. A journalist, Justine (‘thin girl’) interviews Dorothy (‘fat girl’) about her time as a member of a cult led by an author. Though they have very different backgrounds, the two girls find they have both experienced vicitimisation at the hands of their parents.

Kirkus reviews wrote,

‘Gaitskill fully understands the psycho-dynamics of being a misfit, and hence the appeal of such as Rand. But her fine and disturbing novel is also a stunning work of the imagination–genuine and luminous.’

Two Girls is one of the books referenced in the Rumpus article ‘What Men Talk About When They Talk About Mary Gaitskill’, which argued that men feel uncomfortable reading Gaitskill’s work and thus are inclined to review it negatively. This in turn prompted Mary Gaitskill’s ‘open letter’, in which she rebuffs this claim: ‘in truth some of my best support has come from men’.

BAD BEHAVIOUR (1988)

In her first collection of stories Mary Gaitskill explores love, lust, infatuation and power within relationships. In a blog written for Waterstones ‘On Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behaviour‘, author Zoe Pilger wrote:

‘Like the HBO TV series Sex and The City, which came a decade later in the late 90s, Bad Behaviour documents the lives of women trying to find their way in New York. Unlike the writers of Sex and The City, however, Gaitskill doesn’t pretend that the apotheosis of a woman’s life is finding ‘The One’.’

The story entitled ‘Secretary’ inspired the controversial film of the same name, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Visit our fanzine for more Mary Gaitskill: marygaitskill.tumblr.com

Summer has finally arrived with a blazing heatwave, and we have your reading covered with some books to celebrate the heat and others to cool you down (even if it’s by the coolness of the author). So pick up a book and a fan and get ready to enjoy or escape the heat. Knowing the UK weather, we know it won’t last long!

Tell us what you’re reading during this heatwave – @SerpentsTail

HEAT-SEEKERS:

THE DISASTER TOURIST – Yun Ko-eun

A satirical Korean eco-thriller with a fierce feminist sensibility.

WINNER OF THE CWA CRIME IN TRANSLATION DAGGER

Yona has been stuck behind a desk for years working as a programming coordinator for Jungle, a travel company specialising in package holidays to destinations ravaged by disaster. When a senior colleague touches her inappropriately she tries to complain, and in an attempt to bury her allegations, the company make her an attractive proposition: a free ticket for one of their most sought-after trips, to the desert island of Mui.

She accepts the offer and travels to the remote island, where the major attraction is a supposedly-dramatic sinkhole. When the customers who’ve paid a premium for the trip begin to get frustrated, Yona realises that the company has dangerous plans to fabricate an environmental catastrophe to make the trip more interesting, but when she tries to raise the alarm, she discovers she has put her own life in danger.

Get your copy

UNDER THE BLUE – Oana Aristide

A lead debut novel: a literary thriller about a pandemic, the rise of AI, and how – or why – we might save the human race.

A road trip beneath clear blue skies and a blazing sun: a reclusive artist is forced to abandon his home and follow two young sisters across a post-pandemic Europe in search of a safe place. Is this the end of the world?

Meanwhile two computer scientists have been educating their baby in a remote location. Their baby is called Talos, and he is an advanced AI program. Every week they feed him data, starting from the beginning of written history, era by era, and ask him to predict what will happen next to the human race. At the same time they’re involved in an increasingly fraught philosophical debate  about why human life is sacred and why the purpose for which he was built – to predict threats to human life to help us avoid them – is a worthwhile and ethical pursuit.

These two strands come together in a way that is always suspenseful, surprising and intellectually provocative: this is an extraordinarily prescient and vital work of fiction – an apocalyptic road novel to frighten and thrill.

Get your copy

BEFORE THE RUINS – Victoria Gosling

One long, hot summer Andy and her friends begin a game that will take their whole lives to play out.

Andy believes that she has left her past far behind her. But when she gets a call from Peter’s mother to say he’s gone missing, she finds herself pulled into a search for answers.

Bored and restless after their final school exams, Andy, Peter, Em and Marcus broke into a ruined manor house nearby and quickly became friends with the boy living there. Blond, charming and on the run, David’s presence was as dangerous as it was exciting. The story of a diamond necklace, stolen from the house fifty years earlier and perhaps still lost somewhere in the grounds inspired the group to buy a replica and play at hiding it, hoping to turn up the real thing along the way. But the game grew to encompass decades of resentment, lies and a terrible betrayal.

Now, Andy’s search for Peter will unearth unimaginable secrets – and take her back to the people who still keep them.

Get your copy

ICE QUEENS:

THE WINTER WAR – Philip Teir

So you thought life in Scandinavia was perfect?

On the surface, the Paul family are living the liberal, middle-class dream in Helsinki. Max Paul is a renowned sociologist and his wife Katriina has a well-paid government job. They live in a beautiful apartment in the centre of the city. But look closer and the cracks start to show.

As he approaches his sixtieth birthday, the certainties of Max’s life begin to dissolve. His wife no longer loves him, and his grown-up daughters – one in London, one in Helsinki – have problems of their own.  So when a former student turned journalist shows up and offers him a seductive lifeline, Max starts down a dangerous path from which he may never find a way back.

Funny, sharp, and brilliantly truthful, Teir’s debut has the feel of a big, contemporary, humane American novel, but with a distinctly Scandinavian edge.

Get your copy

ON TIME AND WATER – Andri Snær Magnason

A unique approach to climate change that recalls W. G. Sebald.

Icelandic author and activist Andri Snær Magnason’s ‘Letter to the Future’, an extraordinary and moving eulogy for the lost Okjökull glacier, made global news and was shared by millions. Now he attempts to come to terms with the issues we all face in his new book On Time and Water. Magnason writes of the melting glaciers, the rising seas and acidity changes that haven’t been seen for 50 million years. These are changes that will affect all life on earth.

Taking a path to climate science through ancient myths about sacred cows, stories of ancestors and relatives and interviews with the Dalai Lama, Magnason allows himself to be both personal and scientific. The result is an absorbing mixture of travel, history, science and philosophy.

Get your copy

MAN ENOUGH TO BE A WOMAN – Jayne County

The true story of trans punk performance art sensation Jayne County’s wild and daring life.

Born in rural Georgia in 1947, Jayne moved to New York and became part of the 60s art scene surrounding Andy Warhol’s Factory. Jayne’s story follows the arc of LGBT liberation in the US – she came of age living hand-to-mouth, faced off against police at Stonewall and came out as a trans woman while she was touring Europe with her band. She went everywhere and met everyone and lived to tell the tale.

Man Enough to Be a Woman is the funny, fierce memoir of Jayne’s extraordinary journey, now including a new epilogue where she reflects on how the world has (almost) caught up with her.

Get your copy

‘…I don’t know what comes after, once I decide to let desire have its way with me. How to un-melt the melted? How to turn the ground powder back into a person? This idea points to a knowledge that I don’t have: how to love without losing the self.’

Plumbing the well of culture for clues about love and loss – from Agnes Martin’s abstract paintings to Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet to Frank Ocean’s Blonde – this brilliant work of debut nonfiction explores the state of falling in love, whether with a painting or a person.

Pham creates a perfectly fractured portrait of modern intimacy, triumphant in its vulnerability and restlessness. Pop Song is a book about distances: the miles we travel to get away from ourselves, or those who hurt us, and the impossible gaps that can exist between two people sharing a bed.

Here is a map to all the routes by which we might escape our own needs before finally finding a way home.

Read an extract below.

Follow Larissa on Twitter.

Ways of knowing

when it’s time to go

A starting gun

A text message

A plane ticket

A phone call

Last call

An upside-down shot glass in front of you at the bar

An orgasm in an unfamiliar room

A failure to come

A silence

The moon is visible

The moon isn’t visible, and you want to find it

You’re the happiest you think you’ll ever be at this party

Everyone else around you is hailing a cab

The sun is setting

The pool is closing

They’ve turned off the fog machines

The sun is rising

The sun is rising and a song you love has started to play

Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me is Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club pick for May, a #1 NYT bestseller and a #1 Amazon bestseller!

‘Holy Moly!… you will NOT be able to put this book down! If you’re looking for the ultimate page-turner, I highly recommend The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave.’
Reese Witherspoon

We’re absolutely thrilled with your response to Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me. Since we’re all dying to know more, our fearless editor Miranda Jewess did a Q&A with Laura. Read on to discover how Laura came up with the novel and all about the forthcoming TV series starring Julia Roberts.

Laura Dave also has a special message for her Viper readers. Click here to watch.

1. The Last Thing He Told Me is quite different from your previous novels. What inspired you to write your first domestic thriller?

I absolutely love thrillers and read them constantly. But when I started writing The Last Thing He Told Me, I wanted to do it a little differently than I’d seen done before. I wanted to write a thriller rooted in hope. What I mean by that is I didn’t want the smoking gun to be that the husband turns out to be evil, or that the main character was wrong to trust herself, or that the story would hinge on betrayal. As my main character (Hannah Hall) navigated the twists and turns of her dilemma, I wanted her to find her way to somewhere unexpected, somewhere better. Instead of the constant reversals leading her to seek revenge or reimagine her entire life, Hannah found herself becoming the hero of her own life.

2. The heart of the novel is the relationship between Hannah and her stepdaughter Bailey. Was this inspired by a real mother/daughter dynamic?

I had my first child several years into working on this novel and it changed everything about the story I was hoping to tell. I understood Hannah in a new way, and her desire to be there for Bailey in the middle of her own struggle. The full landscape of Hannah’s narrative concretized for me. This involved reconsidering Hannah and Bailey’s relationships with their birth mothers, their ideas about motherhood and love, and of course the joy we can find in our found families.

3. The novel is going to be made into a TV series, with Julia Roberts starring as the main character, Hannah. Do you think the character will change through her depiction?

I’m writing the limited series now with my husband, the screenwriter Josh Singer. It’s been a dream to write this with Julia Roberts in mind, and to bring her energy to Hannah’s character.

4. Was the brilliant ending planned or did it change as you wrote? No spoilers!

I worked on this book for many years, on and off, and had many different endings that I considered along the way. But it was after I gave birth to my son in 2016 that I realized Hannah’s story, in the most primal sense, was the story of becoming a mother. For me, the book is the call to that—and the ending is the answer. Once I found it, I never wavered in believing that was where this novel needed to end. I’ve started imagining the sequel to this book. So it is possible this ending will turn out to be more of an intermission… and this family will have a new act, after all.

5. What book or author do you recommend to everyone?

Heartburn by Nora Ephron and Defending Jacob by William Landay.

We’re delighted that Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me is Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club pick for May!

Not only is this gripping book soon to be a major TV series starring Julia Roberts, a #1 Amazon bestseller, a Vogue Best Books to Read in 2021, an Amazon Best Book of May 2021, a Reader’s Digest 50 Best Books to Read This Year and a NetGalley Book of the Month for May, it is now also a Reese Witherspoon pick for May!

See what Reese had to say:

‘Holy Moly!… you will NOT be able to put this book down! If you’re looking for the ultimate page- turner, I highly recommend The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave.

This story centers around Hannah, who is settling into her new role as a wife & stepmother when her husband suddenly disappears leaving her with an ominous note and a request to protect his daughter.
There’s so much to love about this thrilling, roller coaster of a novel: mysterious identities, unreliable friendships, dubious loyalties and terrifying chase sequences through the streets of Austin, Texas.

Pick up a copy and join me to discuss our May 2021 pick!’

See her announcement on Reese’s Book Club:

‘Love note to self: the May #ReesesBookClub pick is a juicy, secret-filled read that you’ll finish in a day and talk about for months.

“The Last Thing He Told Me” by Laura Dave gives new meaning to the phrase ‘you can never judge a book (OR suspicious husband) by its cover’ with her gripping tale of love, deception and disappearance.

If the thrilling start doesn’t hook you—a missing husband, a duffel bag of cash, a cryptic note and teenage stepdaughter drama—wait till you find out how it ends. Warning: there’s so many secrets that you may start to question if you can even trust yourself.’

Learn more about the book:

IT WAS THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME: PROTECT HER

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his new wife, Hannah: protect her. Hannah knows exactly who Owen needs her to protect – his sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. And who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As her increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested for fraud and the police start questioning her, Hannah realises that her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey might hold the key to discovering Owen’s true identity, and why he disappeared. Together they set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realise that their lives will never be the same again…

A beautiful and thrilling mystery, perfect for readers of Lianne Moriarty and Celeste Ng.

Pick up a copy of the hardback, order the ebook, or download the audiobook today, but make sure you #CancelYourPlans before reading. You won’t want to stop.

The Last House on Needless Street is finally out!

We know you all have many questions for Catriona Ward, author of The Last House On Needless Street. Everything from the gripping plot twists that no one sees coming, to the intricacy of the characters that readers are coming to love. Today, we’re delighted to share this Q&A our lovely editor Miranda did with Catriona. Read on to get the scoop.

1. Everyone who has read The Last House on Needless Street raves about all the many twists and turns. Did you plan them in detail, or write furiously and edit afterwards? 

I knew where the book had to end up, so I wrote my way furiously towards that. It was like spinning a vast spiderweb. Each plot thread was integral yet interconnected to a hundred others, and each change affected and reverberated through the whole. It felt impossible at times but I just had to believe it would come together. And some of the most satisfying twists were the ones I discovered as I wrote.

2. A character in The Last House on Needless Street who has become an early reader favourite is the snooty cat, Olivia. Is she a complete creation, or is she based on a real cat?  

Growing up, I had a black cat called Velvet. She was born in Kenya, and came with us when we moved to Madagascar, the US, Yemen, Morocco and finally the UK where she passed away peacefully at the age of 19. Whenever I opened a book she would appear and curl up next to me. I spent most of my childhood reading – so we spent a lot of time together. I think Olivia is very much her own cat, however. As I was planning the book she strolled in from nowhere, as cats tend to do. She was already very full of opinions.

3. The Last House on Needless Street is quite different to your two previous novels, Rawblood and Little Eve, which were more straight historical gothic. Why did you decide to write a modern gothic thriller? 

I was born in the US and lived there as a child. I wanted to mine new areas of experience for this book – my US background, my lifelong fascination with serial killers and those wild forests of Washington State. It felt like time to push my boundaries as a writer and turn my love of the gothic to something strange and altogether different.

4. Who are the writers who most inspire you, and whose work you return to again and again? 

Kelly Link makes the magical seem everyday, and vice versa. I always leave her work enriched. Shirley Jackson understands that sometimes it’s the mundane that terrifies, rather than the monstrous. Growing up, Stephen King was my gateway to horror. His writing was a huge influence and still lives in my imagination today.

5. Can you tell us something about your next book, Sundial?

A mother takes her teenage daughter on a bonding trip to her abandoned childhood home, Sundial, which sits in the great expanses of the Mojave desert in Southern California. Each thinks the other is planning to murder her out there. It sounds sinister, and it is – but it’s also about compassion, sacrifice, and the complicated love that can hold families together.

Catriona Ward was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the US, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. Her debut Rawblood won Best Horror Novel at the 2016 British Fantasy Awards, and was a WHSmith Fresh Talent title. Little Eve won the Shirley Jackson Award, was a Guardian best book of 2018 and won the Best Horror Novel at the 2019 British Fantasy Awards. She lives in London and Devon.

You can follow Catriona Ward on Twitter here and Miranda Jewess on Twitter here.

Have you wondered what inspired the author, Tina Baker, to write about stealing a child? Or maybe you’ve thought about how much of her own self she poured into her characters?

Or, you’re just itching to know what Tina’s next book is? (You and us both!).

Find all the answers, and more, below.

1. Call Me Mummy is your debut novel, and previously you spent years working in TV. What made you decide to start writing?
I’ve always written. At school I’d write stories and poems for myself, not just in English lessons. I kept it secret. It didn’t do to seem soft back there, back then. I was hit on the head with a chair when I entered a Cadbury’s chocolate writing competition. To add insult to actual injury, I didn’t win. I always wanted to write a novel but couldn’t find the time or head space to write fiction when I was a journalist. When my dad died, I finally decided to go for it and did my MA in Creative Writing at City University.

2. The characters of Kim and Mummy are so vivid, both flawed and relatable. Are they based on anyone in real life? Are there parts of your own personality in there?
The three main characters are all parts of me. Don’t hate me! Obviously, I’ve exaggerated because I haven’t actually stolen a child. Honest! I empathise with both Kim and Mummy, although I’m mainly Tonya. Kim’s friend Ayesha is based on the ladies I taught to keep fit at Finsbury Park Mosque.

3. In Call Me Mummy you explore how the media can turn on women who don’t conform to the ideals of motherhood. Why did you decide to include it in the novel?
I was horrified by the treatment of Madeleine McCann’s parents. As if losing a child’s not the worst thing in the world, you’re then crucified in the press. I never did much news reporting as a journalist, but I’ve read stuff that chills my blood. Even if the story’s balanced, people remember headline quotes like ‘Scummy Mummy’ which can ruin someone’s life. Woman can’t win in the media. We’re too fat, too thin, too confident, too bolshy— slammed for being a working mum or a stay-at-home mum. A man can turn up to the school gates with coke up his nose and a hooker on his arm and it’s like, ‘Bless! He’s come to collect the kids.’

4. Which crime writers most inspire you? Is there a book that you want to recommend to everyone?
I confess, I hadn’t read much crime until I was told I was a crime writer. Not one single Agatha Christie. Please don’t stone me in the street. I’ve now read a lot of my Viper colleagues’ work. Dave Jackson makes me laugh, Janice Hallett challenges my brain, Catriona Ward hooks my emotions. Shuggie Bain is the book that most touched me recently. The working class/underclass experience is very close to my heart. Not crime? What Thatcher did to Shuggie’s community was a bloody crime.

5. Can you tell us something about your next book? No spoilers!
Nasty Little Cuts explores those small niggles, resentments and cruelties that build and build within relationships, and then in highly charged situations like Christmas can erupt into something horrific. Bridget Jones meets Jack Reacher.

Tina Baker was brought up in a caravan after her mother, a fairground traveller, fell pregnant by a window cleaner. After leaving the bright lights of Coalville, she came to London and worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years. She’s probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV. Call Me Mummy is Tina’s first novel.

You can follow the brilliant Tina Baker here.

For Black History Month, we’re flooding our news feed with profiles of our black authors, past and present. In the fifth of the series, we take an excerpt from the multi-prizewinning young poet Kayo Chingonyi’s introduction to Langston Hughes’ Selected Poems, republished this year in our Classics series.

Follow @kayochingonyi on Twitter

THE SONG – AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGSTON HUGHES

Kayo Chingonyi

It is appropriate that my first meeting with the work of Langston Hughes wasn’t in the pages of a book but in Gary Bartz’s rendition of ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, a song I heard while listening to Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Show on Radio 1 sometime in the early 2000s, when, at fourteen or fifteen years old, it was my habit to record songs from the radio on to my favoured TDK D 90 Type 1 audio cassettes. I sat there, finger primed on the pause button and, when I heard the soaring notation, I let the pause button go to record what came next.

The words in the singer’s mouth had a swing not unlike someone walking down a street in Harlem, with that borough’s famous élan (though, don’t tell Brooklyn I said that). What did it mean to ‘know rivers’, I thought? So began my kinship with Langston; one of the enduring dialogues of my reading life. He was there at that xiii crucial point when my sense of self began taking shape and later, when I was an undergraduate in English Literature, searching the supplementary anthology of a module entitled ‘Introduction to Advanced Literary Studies’ for names I recognised, there he was again, like the nameless protagonist of his much anthologised poem speaking of continuity, ‘the/ flow of human blood in human veins’.

It would be remiss of me here to brush past the quieter poems in Hughes’s oeuvre, those that a volume such as this – reflecting the poems Hughes himself wished to preserve – brings into such sharp relief. I want, then, to offer my hand, dear reader, and take you for a walk around Langston’s poems.

There is an important sense in which Langston is a blues poet, and indeed many of the poems in this volume reflect that in their titles, but there is another part of the blues that Langston brought into his poems: an attunement to the nuances of spoken language and African-American vernacular English most especially:

They done took Cordelia
Out to stony lonesome ground.

‘Stony Lonesome’

Snow has friz me, sun has baked me.
Looks like between ’em
They done tried to make me
Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’—

‘Still Here’

Buy your copy of Selected Poems from your local independent bookshop or: Waterstones | Amazon | Hive