Writing on this site back in 2011, Dan Holloway called for a punk revolution in the publishing industry, predicting that the next great literary innovation would not come from a traditional imprint, but instead from the relatively anarchic world of e-books and online publishing, the natural home for authors (and publishers) ‘who believe in something, and for whom that belief, that hunger, that need to turn the world on its axis, is as strong as their need to get an advance or hit the Amazon bestsellers list’. The e-book, according to this idea, is the equivalent of the punk rock 45 - an opportunity for writers to experiment and express ideas free from the pressure of contractually-mandated word counts, whilst without the high overhead of a print run to worry about, publishers can support work which excites them, rather than worrying about what looks good on a marketing spreadsheet.
There are benefits for readers too; low overheads mean low RRPs and the opportunity to sample a new author’s work with little financial outlay, whilst particularly exciting for me is the opportunity to see writers I admire releasing more short fiction, filling the gap between full-length efforts. At the moment, the e-book world is still in the primordial soup stage. As in almost all areas of publishing today, Amazon are racing into the lead with their kindle singles, while others lag behind – a post on the book blog Gespinstbauplatz bemoaned the lack of independents making the most of opportunities opened up by digital publishing. Beyond Amazon lie the unedited and quality-uncontrolled wilds of self-publishing, with very little in between.
One company which has really embraced e-publishing and the single format is Galley Beggar Press, based in Norwich but with a strong online presence. The stated aim of Galley Beggar is to ‘act as a sponsor to writers who have struggled to either find or retain a publisher, and (most importantly) whose writing shows great ambition and literary merit.’ They already have an impressive catalogue, including the well-received novel A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride, alongside releases by the likes of Lee Rourke and Joanna Walsh, but perhaps most interesting is their Singles Club, through which they release a short story every week, priced at £1.
I first became aware of the Singles Club when they released Tony O’Neill’s novella A Story Sadder Than All The Bruised Whores In Hollywood, a typically lacerating narrative of Hollywood lowlives which I reviewed here. Suffice to say it had everything you would expect of an O’Neill story – drugs, despair, and excellent anecdotes about Robbie Williams.
O’Neill’s single was followed by Snorri & Frosti, by Ben Myers, a fellow member of the literary Brutalist movement. Myers’s previous books have focussed on the emotional turmoil of young men. His first novel, Richard, was a fictionalised account of the life of Manics guitarist Richey James, whilst follow-up Pig Iron dealt with a young man fighting for survival in a former coalmining town ravaged by Thatcherism. His single finds him in more reflective mood. Snorri and Frosti are brothers, living in a wooden cabin on remote hillside in a Northern European country. Both are in their seventies. Everything is kept deliberately vague, as if Myers were a playwright leaving the director room for interpretation. There is a hint of Beckett in the dialogue – the brothers engage in circuitous arguments about whose turn it is to make a coffee, and the difference between a callus and a blister. The emotional register is largely wistful: 'Sometimes I wake up and for a few minutes I think I am a teenager again... Sometimes sleep is like time travel'.
Through repetition of stories and events, Myers highlights the unchanging nature of rural life, and the brothers’ identification with the land, before introducing threat, in the form of surveyors and letters from a developer: 'a resort with shops and places to drink too much alcohol. That doesn't sound good'. Ultimately, Snorri & Frosti is a lament about powerlessness in the face of ‘development’. The brothers may feel that 'we are in the valley and the valley is in us too', but this identification means little when weighed against the potential to make money. Almost entirely driven by dialogue, the story has the feel of a radio play, and would probably work well in that format; as it is, I enjoyed it more than probably anything else I’ve read by Myers.
Next up was Nikesh Shukla’s The Time Machine. A deeply personal piece of writing, it charts the protagonist Ashok’s attempts to keep the memory of his mother alive by learning to cook like her. When I interviewed Shukla about his first novel, Coconut Unlimited, he spoke about the impact of bereavement on his writing, and The Time Machine is full of poignant details. Finding some food his mother cooked at the back of the freezer, Ashok worries that 'if I eat her food, that's it... I will spend the rest of my life trying to recreate those tastes on my tongue. I worry that Indian food to me will become restaurant food and the one chana masala dish she showed me how to make'.
To combat this, he decides to learn how to cook the dishes that remind him of her, with the help of his aunts, and a cookery book his family compiled for him as a wedding gift. Cooking is a way of connecting with his past, 'the alchemy of being able to smell and hear and see the house I grew up in contained in the food in front of me.' As well as feeling nostalgic, Ashok worries that he and his friends lack the practical skills his parents’ generation possessed. Playing ‘zombie apocalypse job description’, he realises that their abilities are all in things like marketing – no-one can cook, or mend things.
Although the novella is shot-through with sadness, there is still humour in the writing. Akosh struggles with basics such as chapattis, and revealing this on Twitter forces him to confront his shortcomings: 'the replies I get indicate that even white people know how to conjure up the basic throwing together of water, flour and heat'. His aunt Anjali takes a phlegmatic view, suggesting 'maybe I should be teaching your wife. Surely it is her job to know how to cook like mum... Sexist maybe, but it's tradition.' Shukla also includes recipes for three dishes in the text; my only comment there is that if you are cooking his khichdi on an electric hob, you’ll need a lot more water.
Most recently, I read My Beauty by Rowena MacDonald. Fortunately, this story bears no resemblance to the unfortunate Kevin Rowland album of the same name. Set on a mink farm in Denmark, the narrative focusses on a beautiful would-be vet, Danuta, who started out as a casual labourer before catching the eye of the farmer, Sven, who was 'twice her age with a face like a turnip but... had to be a millionaire'. Danuta feels her future is defined by her relationship with Sven, in the short-term at least; she has a ‘five year plan’, and hopes that Sven will pay for her to finish her veterinary science degree. In the meantime, she is trapped in a gilded cage – there is no sympathy between them, just beauty and obedience traded for money.
Painting her nails, the blonde Danuta feels kinship with the mink, who are likewise prized for the colour of their pelts. Crammed together, the mink’s ‘tiny heads contain little but vicious impulses; they eat their babies if they get stressed; they eat each other'. Most of all she is likened to Princess, a tame and much-prized creature whose existence, like Danuta’s, is dependent on Sven’s whims and continued goodwill.
Although My Beauty is short even by Singles Club standards, at four pages, MacDonald packs a lot of meaning into her text. The condition of the mink, struggling viciously in their cages, calls to mind debates about female enforcement of patriarchal gender norms, whilst there are also nods to trafficking and the impact of capitalism on personal interactions. This is no polemic, though; MacDonald’s style verges on the lyrical at times, and her allusions are never overt or clumsy.
Each of the four singles I’ve read so far has had a lot to offer in terms of subject matter and style, and in particular I’m looking forward to reading more by Shukla and MacDonald. Hopefully this type of publishing will take off, and we’ll see more authors and presses adopting the form. In the meantime, Galley Beggar deserve a lot of credit for their initiative, and I’ll keep reading with interest.
All of these titles are available from The Galley Beggar online store, priced at £1.
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