Ages ago, I did a phone interview with Sam Grove from a radio station on the east coast. I'd forgotten all about it. (I think I was busy writing my thesis at Deep River at the time.)
I found it online tonight whilst quietly googling my book. Yes, that is a bit sad I admit, but the interview is quite nice.
http://www.2ser.com/contact/item/7189-saturday-february-8th-memoirs
Had a listen this morning. Not as well a produced show as some of the others but very useful nonetheless and you came across extremely well. The interviewer read an excerpt which was one of my favourite pieces from the book too, the one where the boat is on the surface and you take us underwater to the dreamy exotic world of the fish and the weed, then up again and back to the boat which is tugging against the anchor like a naughty pony. I think it was naughty pony anyway.. After listening to that again I thought that I might stick to my guns and say this work is good enough to win prizes because I'm not sure anyone else is going to have produced a memoir quite as beautiful or quite as unique. The female touch evident in the literary quality of Salt is sort of at odds with the nature of the industry -the fishers- in terms of its male dominated characters and also the nature of the controlling authorities who -on the surface of things anyway- come across as all scientific and regulatory. So I think the book is likely to be memorable to reviewers in that way and when they come back to remembering it they'll read a few pages again and see just how magnificent some of the passages you've strung together really are. Blowing your trumpet? Yeah, but I'm a fan so it's okay. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks mate. That is just lovely.
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit clunky, hearing it again. But she asked some really good questions. She was a good interviewer, and the version online is edited heavily.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the awards 'season' may have run its course.
We'll see, Ciaran :~)