‘Marching Songs’ by Keith Ridgway

In 2012 I became a pest on social media by talking about Keith Ridgway’s novel Hawthorn & Child too much. As one Irish writer – whom I blocked – observed, you’d think I had written the thing myself. Hawthorn & Child is a novel made of loosely connected stories – “a shattered novel in a bag”, Ridgway called it – and Marching Songsis one of the stories. It’s narrated by a man who is clearly not right in the head, who disappears down YouTube rabbit holes toward radical thinking in a way that seems even more familiar now than it did then. But what I love about the story is the poetry of the narrator’s cracked and freewheeling voice, which manages to be idiosyncratic without striking false notes. There are lines in it that hang around in my own head a dozen years later, which is as good a measure of its success as any.

First published in Granta 120, June 2012, where it can be read online, and as part of the novel Hawthorn & Child, Granta, 2012

‘We Are Appalling’ by Keith Ridgway

Absolutely for the day (and date) that’s in it, I’m ending on this unlikely alliance between a gay man and his asexual female partner, who make a ‘better life’ decision to leave London for a spooky crumbling house in the countryside, located beside a stinking chicken facility. There are echoes of Joyce with a mantra of “all the dead are loved, and all the loved are dead” throughout, and despite fat hints from the very first sentence as to what might’ve gone down, we really don’t have a clue by the end. The first time I read it I had to jump back in straightaway and go again. When I bring it into writing workshops, the punters are confused. They love the writing, but are annoyed there’s no real definitive answers to go home with. What the bejaysus is actually going on? Keith is a writer who loves to play with the reader’s head and you can see he’s having a lot of fun here. I love how contemporary it is though, how as a writer he is firmly rooted in the world as we know and recognise it. Summer passed, summer passed, but we find out summer had not passed. What happened to these characters in-between? “It was six hours to London and Bert suspected they had made a mistake. It was not that it was unpleasant. The house was old and draughty and they had spent the first several nights terrified of noises and silence, shadows and doors. But that had settled, and it was comfortable—in a new way of thinking about comfort—and resolutely quiet. No airplanes. No traffic. No people.” As Bert is dreaming of London and dreaming of all its men, Marianne stays put with Pinecone (the dog), soaking up the bad smells and weird going-ons. Back in the city Bert attempts to hook up with old friends on an app (and plans to check in with his agent), but instead gets caught up in literal and metaphorical rooms, in conversations that may or may not be happening, and texts that seem to make no sense when they land. By the time he gets back to Marianne and things are moving around the house in thin air, there’s a combined feeling of anxiety and panic. What is that that little bell that rings so “clear and loud and joyful” and where is Marianne’s niece Lisa? Keith needs to spill the beans on this story, but you just know he won’t.

First published in The Stinging Fly, Issue 41, Volume 2: Winter 2019-20

‘Goo Book’ by Keith Ridgway

When I first read the linked collection Hawthorn and Child I was so excited. I was like, ‘But, but…I didn’t know you were allowed to do this!’ In each story, there’s a depth of detail, an access to the contemporary world which is rare and almost spooky – as if the events of the story might be happening just round the corner. But there’s also a strong narrative compulsion – often involving dread. This story is about a North London thief out of his depth, and has a lot of brilliant dialogue in cars. The way he uses the connections between the stories in his linked collections – both Hawthorn and Child and A Shock – feels less contrived than the big narratives in many regular novels. He never over-exploits a single idea.

First published in The New Yorker, April 2011, and available to subscribers to read here. Collected in Hawthorn and Child, Granta, 2013