The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society discussion
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The Litten Path
Hamilton-esque books, authors..
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James Clarke (author of the Litten Path)
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Mod
This is the first I've heard of Hollow in the Land by James Clarke
Sounds great though
This novel-in-stories takes place in a neglected, liminal landscape between the rural and the industrial, which often intrudes as a character in its own right. Populated by ordinary people at extraordinary moments, Hollow in the Land is vivid and lyrical with glimmers of hope and humour.
Mod
"Your gratitude is reciprocated Mark, since I didn’t know that James Clarke had a new book published and that’s great news.
From the Hollow in the Land synopsis, it looks like it’s set during the 84-85 strike again, but in Lancashire this time.
Once the bookshops and libraries are back in operation, I’ll be in the socially-distanced queue."
Splendid news David.
The bookshops are open in England. Mrs B has already been making up for lost time.
Mark wrote:
"Even after they re-open, it’s a safe bet that the bookshops and libraries of NYC won’t have a copy of Hollow in the Land, so I’ll probably wait for the eventual paperback. I’ll look forward to hearing what you think, though, after you’ve read it."
I plan to read Hollow in the Land too and will update this thread when that happens
"Out walking Ada Robinson's dog while his wife drinks herself into a forgetful fug, Harry Maiden discovers an intricate system of caves beneath the wind turbines. Over at the Woolpack one night, Rosco re-encounters friendships he thought he'd left behind at the Stubbins paper mill. Mad old Gos leads a mysterious treasure hunt to the Bronze Age burial site at Whitelow Cairn."This is Hollow In The Land: a corner of England teeming with mystery and intrigue and filled with real, flesh-and-blood characters, each of them at a different point along life's journey through childhood hopefulness, faded first love and middle-aged disillusionment. Hollow In The Land uncovers the small everyday mysteries of their lives - and ours."
"There is an American influence on James Clarke's writing - Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Denis Johnson - but the accent is English, matter-of-fact, which makes (sic) the vivid observations and moments of grace all the more vivid. Hollow In The Land is at its best when dealing with men struggling with their place in the world, how even to talk about it, in voices imbued with place and time and class. Their story is a story of England today."
Anthony Cartwright, author of Iron Towns) - this also looks promising Iron Towns
That's the inner cover blurb on the hardback copy which has arrived today, and will move up the vertiginous to-be-read mini mountain and be consumed soon.
Mod
OK, I’m in, with CD1 of Surrender To The Rhythm as accompaniment, and two lodging Border Terriers at my feet. Page one, line 11 “...in search of Ada’s putrid Border Terrier...”
Synchronicity at play.
I.
AM.
SAVOURING.
EVERY.
WORD.
Do not disturb.
This is wonderful so far. The dog’s called David. Yay.
“Knowing full well that Harry didn’t like watermelon...she upended a secret litre of vodka into a hole bored in the top of the fruit.”
“Harry arrived home to find Jenny asleep on the couch with a thoughtful expression on her face, and ‘Cheree’ by Suicide playing on the stereo.” Class.
I'm about 80% through Hollow In The Land and like The Litten Path, this will require a re-read. This time though, I will metaphorically flip it over back to the start of side one and re-read immediately. There is just so much to take in in what appears to be a collection of discrete tales, but in which there are subtle inter-connections (a paper mill accident, a local haulage company as an employer etc), and I need to find these and other threads to see Clarke's work as a whole. It'll be no hardship to wallow in it again so soon.
It's beautifully written, its informative and descriptive simplicity sometimes rubbing shoulders with The Lyrical Ballads - just down the M6 from the Lakes too.
Mod
Your culture life positively overflows with quality at the moment David
Just a word...I haven’t yet dived back into Hollow In The Land yet, to give it the intense forensic examination it deserves, but I will.
A main reason has been my immersion in Anthony Cartwright’s Iron Towns, Cartwright having attracted my attention due to his comments on Clarke’s style on the inner flap of Hollow In The Lands. Iron Towns gets five stars from me, as its commentary on the Midlands Rust Belt’s further decline is illuminated by a number of personal stories, the big dipper that is football (that’s soccer, Mark) emotion, ancient legend, Panenka, Eusebio, Billy Meredith, Zizou and Pirlo, without whom, of course, no party is possible. I was moved to send the following extract to my children this week:
“Like Zidane, Pirlo’s expression does not change, not one flicker from start to finish. If there is anything, there is just the tiniest hint of self-admonishment. It’s the face of a man who has been out and come back home abd realised he has forgotten to post the letter he’d meant to. He is wearied. He looks like he wants to sit on his arse and think about Dante. The English players chase the air between Pirlo and the ball. He passes it into the gaps between the players, it’s simple, he says.
Hart is on his back, like some great insect trying to right irself, Gregor Samsa in a red goalkeeper’s shirt. Maybe it’s all some joke that swirls back to Prague. Still, Pirlo’s face stays the same”.
Happy coincidence, I suspect. A BBC podcast nudged me to The Litten Path, then thanks to Mark, I discovered James Clarke had had a second book published, thanks to you, I was able to bypass Amazon in sourcing a copy, which included Cartwright's testimonial, which I think is up there ^^^ somewhere. A team effort in which I'm happy to fill the rôle of midfield destroyer.Here's THAT Panenka penalty that thrilled us in 1976. A thing of modern (it still seems that way to me) athletic beauty.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VxXWIZU...
Mod
Not sure you're the midfield destroyer though. More of a playmaker, I'd say, spraying passes and setting up chances for the rest of your Hamiltonian chums to run onto
I doubt that my opponents in Division V of 1981’s Aberdeen Amateur league would have shared your musing, Nigey...However, to business.
I’m still slowly and deliberately tip-toeing through my re-read of Hollow In The Land, finding that my pace of reading almost reflects Clarke’s mindful choice of words as he builds gradual and thoughtful outcomes.
I happened across this, which expresses pretty much my thoughts on the book, which I’ll share once I’ve completed my re-read:
https://amp.theguardian.com/books/202...
Mod
Moody eccentricity prevails, often at the edge of violence. Contrasts between fantasy and realism flicker like the light on the abandoned quarries, the ailing sawmill, the dingy pubs.
Benj, just out of jail and gravitating back to Pendle, as they all do, finds that his optician is a recently-widowed contemporary with whom he had enjoyed adolescent fumblings:“Now he could really see. One lapel of Dani’s business suit was frayed and her sandy hair was centre-parted, reaching her neck in soft, dissonant layers. Time had added creases from her nostrils to the limits of her mouth, but to Benj she was still attractive. Maybe it was the idea of her. The nostalgic age she would always be associated with.”
Proper writin, I’m saying.
Re-read of The Hollow Land completed, and because Goodreads asks for a 1-5 rating, *Oi’ll give it foive, since 4.999 isn’t a choice. In my re-read quest to join the dots between the chapters and characters, I ended up, despite my determination to savour it slowly, racing through it to allow me to make the connections whilst previous chapters were still in my mind. There may be a dull managerial spreadsheet forming to map the relationships.
It’s staggeringly good for a second publication, and although the author is working on his third novel, there are enough loose ends left dangling invitingly for a sequel.
I will try to put together some sort of Goodreads review of a book where there’s almost a need to have all five senses engaged constantly.
* https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/mu...
Mod
Once I've read The Litten Path I'll be following in your wake.
I’m eager to get your thoughts on The Litten Path, my friend. I really do hope that you enjoy its languid but hard-hitting prose as much as Mark and I did. On the strength of Anthony Cartwright’s praise for The Hollow In The Land, and my admiration for Iron Towns, I have now extended my transient library with his:
- Heartland
- The Afterglow
- How I Killed Margaret Thatcher
and will report back under a suitable topic title as I trip my way through them.
I had the sudden out-of-nowhere thought that we hadn’t heard from James Clarke in a while, despite his agent’s pen pic of him declaring that “he is working on his third novel”. Maybe hairs are being split, but with his debut The Litten Path being followed by Hollow In The Land, described as a collection of inter-connected short stories, I made tge assumption that no third book had yet seen the light of day. There seems to be more than one James Clarke writing out there, but I think I’ve pinned him down. The good news is that his Sanderson’ Isle was published last summer (2023) and The Guardian’s review of this effort makes enough positive noises for me to plan investing. I’m a bit concerned about the seemingly-careless intrusion of contemporary terminology into Clarke’s most recent effort, as I have railed against such authorial carelessness before, but I’ll try to overlook such gaffes in examining Sanderson’s Isle once it arrives to top Pile 14.1.12 in the dining room.
Mod
Thanks for the continued inspiration David
That’s Sanderson’s Isle arrived. The testimonials on the dust jacket include:Rachael Allen: “Extraordinarily mapped and cinematic, this is a portrait of riotous, joyful, mystical, horrible and high little Englanders. I loved it.”
Tom Benn: “…sometimes reads like a lost John Braine or David Storey novel. There’s even a touch of Ted Lewis in its fatalism. It’s that good.”
Lee Schofield: “Clarke’s vivid writing brings his characters fully to life, each one grappling in their own way with the social turbulence at the dawn of the space age”.
Immediate promotion to the top of Pile 12.2.8 (Dining room table, left).
Mod
I’ve decided to dive into Sanderson’s Isle this weekend. It’s winked coquettishly to me from Dining Room Pile 3.1.2. for long enough now. “When I was a teenager I became famous in my hometown for disappearing after telling a priest where he could shove his God.” is an opening line full of promise.
I’m taking longer to read Sanderson’s Isle than I imagined. I even had to re-read the first two or three chapters twice as I was forced to neglect it for a week or so, but now I’m back on track. All good thus far, but I have to report that on page 106, at some sort of bohemian party, the narrator Tom Speake reports:
“…an elaborate wooden mantelpiece, its nooks and niches packed with books. Plays by Harold Pinter, Joe Orton and John Osborne. Novels by Graham Greene, Patrick Hamilton and Albert Camus.
Well…
I did finish Sanderson’s Isle a few weeks ago. Whilst not disappointing, it didn’t have the same ‘bite’ as The Litten Path and Hollow In The Land. Perhaps it suffered from the plot and locational duality of being set initially in quite-Swinging London, and then decamping to The Lakes on what I took as a fairly-thin premise. The boy can write though, and its Clarke’s ability to set a scence, and write credible dialogue that notched it up from *** to **** in my evaluation.
I’d still advise anyone interested to read all three books, and to keep an eye open for a fourth.
The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society
Books mentioned in this topic
The Litten Path (other topics)Iron Towns (other topics)
Iron Towns (other topics)
Hollow in the Land (other topics)
Hollow in the Land (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
James Clarke (other topics)James Clarke (other topics)
James Clarke (other topics)
I have a copy on my shelf awaiting the right moment
The Litten Path is a sweeping debut that provides an intimate view of the miners' strike of 1984 as it unfolds through the eyes of two families on either side of the struggle. The Litten Path is a novel of the strike as much as about the strike, knitting the intense emotional and political terrain of the famous dispute with the stark landscape of a small town in South Yorkshire. Written in a tough yet lyrical northern vernacular, The Litten Path is grimly honest and tender, comic and painful, a story of the clash between the urban and the rural, class frictions and the pressures of family. It is about what happens when a decision is made, when one cannot turn back.