At which point he clenched his jaw

What is it with jaws? I don't mean jaw-jaw is better than war-war. I mean with people trying to write fiction, and, sometimes, being published. There are always problems for new writers in trying to use dialogue - two people having a conversation, like playing tennis. After you say he said/she said a couple of times you feel nervous so in come the he stammered, he averred, he blurted, he agreed, he smiled, he hissed, she snapped, she shrugged, she nodded... and if you go back to Victorian times, he ejaculated. The latter is not recommended for modern usage in dialogue unless, of course, someone did. Most of the others should be avoided too. He said is usually enough, and if two people are in dialogue it is easy enough to work out which one is which, with the occasional "Tracey said" if you feel the reader is getting lost. And, besides, the words used should carry the sense. If I were to write "I hope you die" the sense should be clear, and you do not need to say ..."I hope you die," he shouted angrily. For an object lesson in how to write bad dialogue, try any Harry Potter book at random. OK, they sold a copy or two but I'm talking art here not dollars.
But back to jaws. Now, go to the mirror. Clench your jaw. Then try firming your jaw line. Then you will probably think, "I am unable to do this. I have no idea how to achieve a firm jaw line." (I'm assuming you don't normally stand with your jaw dropped open.) So why, why, do writers wishing to write fiction have an obsession with this otherwise unheralded part of one's anatomy. I have read it so many times, and, I confess, read it in two of my late and much loved cousin's published novels. I wish I'd seen the manuscripts before publication. I'm currently reading it, in a book not being published by Five Leaves. It is jaw-dropping.

Left on the shelf

I am not and have never been a member of the Socialist Workers Party. The Party is currently in difficulties following a botched attempt to resolve an accusation of rape against a leading member of the Party. Grim stuff, and for those who like grim the best place to start is http://www.leninology.com/, with the posting on Friday 11 July. The blog is run by SWP member (well, for the next few minutes anyway) and author, Richard Seymour. Though there are many good people in that party it is hard to be too sympathetic to them organisationally (there is a "but" coming along if you want to wait). Here's one small example of why not... In 1994 the Nottingham bookshop I then worked in was turned over by about 50 Nazis. Their action made the news internationally. The SWP - through their front organisation the Anti-Nazi League - immediately set up street stalls "in support" of the bookshop. They collected signatures on a petition of support and donations. Nobody at the bookshop ever saw the petitions and, well, it would be interesting to know what happened to the donations. The SWP/ANL called a press conference without talking to anyone at the bookshop, though they did invite the staff to send a representative - their kind offer was declined - at which they announced a street demonstration the next Saturday and, again, the staff could send a representative to speak if we wished. Again the offer was declined and the demonstration was poorly supported. There was no discussion with the staff about the SWP plans, nor was any other organisation consulted. In the immediate aftermath of the attack we were pretty busy putting the shop back together again, but we were also busy talking to many groups about organising what turned out to be the biggest anti-fascist demonstration against fascism in Nottingham since the 1930s, involving dozens of groups, a week or two after the SWP's damp squib. This small, largely forgotten piece of SWP sectariana or self-importance is one of the reasons I find it hard to get too upset about their party problems. Anyone else who has been around the left could come up with similar tales.

But they do run a bloody good bookshop, and have done for decades. Bookshop staff, ranging from Fergus Nicol, who also ran the Radical Bookseller from 1980-1992, through to the recently departed Sarah Ensor were all great to work with. Five Leaves has had a number of events in their shop, Bookmarks, over the years and we and our audience have always been welcome. Every time I have been there I have found a very attractive range of books. And the Party has produced some excellent authors. I don't read SF but most people really reckon on China Mieville (though his remarks about the current crisis, quoted in the New Statesman might indicate he is not long for the SWP world). Going further back, there was Paul Foot. Foot's book Why You Should Be a Socialist drew many people to the left and his Red Shelley remains an important read. My own favourite SWP writer was the late David Widgery, whose 1989 set of essays, Preserving Disorder, is an essential book for anyone interested in left and alternative culture during the previous two decades but it is also a moving description of Widgery's day job as GP in one of the poorest parts of London. That book was published by Pluto, a major left publisher which originated in the SWP milieu while Red Shelley is published by the Party publisher Bookmarks, which has produced some excellent material over the years. It would be a terrible shame if these good babies were thrown out with the rather grubby bathwater currently engulfing the Party as a whole.

Alexander Baron goes electric

http://tinyurl.com/kingdido-ebook andhttp://tinyurl.com/rosiehogarth-ebookFive Leaves two Alexander Baron books are now available as ebooks, details below:

http://tinyurl.com/kingdido-ebook and http://tinyurl.com/rosiehogarth-ebook

Latest ebook from Five Leaves, The Open Door by Alan Sillitoe

The Open Door follows Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as the final volume in the Seaton series. 

Returning on a troopship from Malaya in 1949, Brian Seaton (Arthur's brother) comes back to a Nottingham world of rationing, the black market, a wife he no longer loves and a child who does not recognise him. He is full of life and lust, but he has tuberculosis, forcing a long stay in a military hospital where he falls for first one nurse, then a second, while carrying on a relationship with another TB sufferer back in Nottingham. In the background, this partially autobiographical novel reveals that Seaton is starting to write, meeting others like him as he realises there is a wider world than the back streets of his Midlands home.
The book is available as a £12.99, published by Five Leaves/Bromley House Editions or in our Kindle edition at £5.99 on http://tinyurl.com/sillitoe-opendoor. Available on other platforms soon if not already.
Dunno what Alan would have thought of ebooks, though I can imagine.

The price of fish

Douglas Houston

I was sorry to hear of the death, earlier this week, of the poet Douglas Houston. Douglas was Welsh but also spent time in Scotland and Hull. It was Hull where he researched poetry and became one of the contributors to the influential book 1982 Bloodaxe book A Rumoured City which included so many important Hull poets or poets from Hull who would later become important. Douglas's last collection was Beyond the Playing Field: Selected Poems (Shoestring). He appeared in the Five Leaves successor book of Hull poets, Old City, New Rumours (2010) and is of course included in our forthcoming 2013 book of Yorkshire poets edited by Ian Parks. His 'Sunday on the Cuillin' in Old City ends 'Better for knowing you, poised on the sense / That we'll never meet again, / Though tracks and chances might allow we will, / Some other day, some other hill.' Our condolences to his family.

In memory of Christopher Martin-Jenkins, by Adrian Buckner

For CMJ

 

It started for me in '71: rumours

of an Indian with a withered arm

running through England at the Oval -

"Chandra" , the conjuring, chantable

abstract of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar.

 

The following June,

my ear to a radio with batteries wearing down -

Boycott taking Lillee's first over after rain delay.

I ran back to school, wondering

about bad light, an early lunch, a seamer's paradise.

 

From that moment, it was all epic to me.

You confirmed it on the page:

 

England Expects you wrote

when Boycott stepped out again

to open at Port of Spain

 

and when he mis-hooked Boyce

with only six on the board

the ball hung in the air for half a page.

 

"The book I refer to in line 13 is Testing Time which CMJ published in 1974 after England's tour of the West Indies. I was 12 at the time and read that book at least a dozen times." AB

'For CMJ' was published in Adrian Buckner's Contains Mild Peril (Five Leaves, 2008)