NYRB Classics discussion

Machines in the Head: Selected Stories



Publication Date: February 18, 2020
Pages: 170
Edited and with a foreword by Victoria Walker

Anna Kavan is one of the great originals of twentieth-century fiction, comparable to Leonora Carrington and Jean Rhys, a writer whose stories explored the inner world of her imagination and plumbed the depths of her long addiction to heroin. This new selection of Kavan’s stories gathers the best work from across the many decades of her career, including oblique and elegiac tales of breakdown and institutionalization from Asylum Piece (1940), moving evocations of wartime from I Am Lazarus (1945), fantastic and surrealist pieces from A Bright Green Field (1958), and stories of addiction from Julia and the Bazooka (1970). Kavan’s turn to science fiction in her final novel, Ice, is reflected in her late stories, while “Starting a Career,” about a mercenary dealer of state secrets, is published here for the first time.

Kavan experimented throughout her writing career with results that are moving, funny, bizarre, poignant, often unsettling, always unique. Machines in the Head offers American readers the first full overview of the work of a fearless and dazzling literary explorer.

Contents:

from Asylum Piece (1940)
Going Up in the World
The Enemy
Airing a Grievance
The Summons
At Night
Machines in the Head
Asylum Piece II
The End in Sight
There Is No End

from I Am Lazarus (1945)
Palace of Sleep
The Blackout
Face of My People
The Gannets
Our City

from A Bright Green Field (1958)
A Bright Green Field
Ice Storm
All Saints

from Julia and the Bazooka (1970)
The Old Address
A Visit
Fog
World of Heroes
Julia and the Bazooka

from My Soul in China (1975)
Five More Days to Countdown

Previously Unpublished
Starting a Career

Oooh. Is this the first time NYRB Classics has adapted a Kavan? I'm excited for this.

It is!

I got a copy of it a day or two ago, and it looks wonderful. The first story really grabbed me. I'll edit the top post to show the contents.

Trevor wrote: "It is!

I got a copy of it a day or two ago, and it looks wonderful. The first story really grabbed me. I'll edit the top post to show the contents."

Thanks for that, Trevor. The only short story collection of hers that I've read is 'Julia and the Bazooka', so this might be worth seeking out simply for the large amount of other content it includes.