Peninsula 2012 Visitation
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PENINSULA ALEX GARLAND, ROBERT MACFARLANE, JAY GRIFFiths, ROY WILKINSon, TOBY BaRLOW, KATHLEEN JAMIE & JAMES ROBERTSON VISITATION 2012 Peninsula 2012 VISITATION It’s 2012 – Olympic Year. As crowds, competition In the end we managed to secure contributions and corporate branding descend on East London, from an immense and varied collection of writers. it seems apt that this, the third annual edition Booker nominees, New York Times bestsellers, of Peninsula, should reflect the transformation Royal Society of Literature Fellows and the of the capital and the summer’s influx of recipients of a whole host of other plaudits sent us visitors. Hopefully, however, what we have great writing, the writing that now fills these pages. created will retain continued relevance long after the Olympic village has been left behind It wasn’t all fudge and business, however. We by the world’s athletes. sought the opinions of the clergy, the police and the family behind one of London’s most unusual tourist Overseeing the project, Craig Taylor was forced attractions. As if that wasn’t enough, things then to fight the pull of the capital and attend early- got strange in the bowels of Bodmin Jail, where morning meetings deep in Cornwall after sleepless what should have been a straightforward interview nights spent flying west along the Cornish Main escalated into a paranormal commune with the Line. Over machine-stale coffee, plans were deceased, distant relatives of the editorial team. conceived, lists were drawn up and within a couple of hours Craig would leave us and climb tiredly At this point it is tempting to include a dictionary back on the train to the city, no doubt rueing his definition, so as to demonstrate the possibilities commitment to these Cornish visitations. held by the theme, but were we to do so with ‘visitation’, this entire editorial would be With no budget to speak of, we began approaching consumed by nine definitions and countless sub- writers with nothing more to offer than definitions of the word. Put simply, the only way our admiration and the promise of Cornish we can demonstrate the scope offered is to point confectionery (hidden in the depths of the you in the direction of the contributions contained Peninsula hard drive, there lurks a spreadsheet in the pages beyond. entitled ‘The Fudge List’ that will ensure we keep our promises). Some writers couldn’t spare the Happy reading, time to contribute (and who could blame them), but gradually emails from agents and publicists The Editors – Paul Tucker, Emma Easy, began trickling back to us, bearing positive tidings. Rachel Santuccio and Helen Orphin. DAVID LAWRENCE travel writer with a love of CRAIG TAYLOR VISITATION David Lawrence is a design festivals, especially Glastonbury. Craig Taylor is the author of three historian specialising in books, most recently Londoners: architecture, culture and design The Days and Nights of London where people and movement JAMES ROBERTSON Now – As Told by Those Who Love CONTRIBUTORS meet. He studies human James Robertson is a poet and It, Hate It, Live It, Left It and migration at the scale of the writer of fiction, who writes in Long for It. He is the editor of the room and the city, is a Fellow Scots and English for adults literary magazine Five Dials. of the Royal Geographical and children. He has won the Society and holds a doctorate on Scottish Arts Council (2003) the topic of motorway service and Saltire Society (2003, PAUL TUCKER stations. He lives and works in 2010) Book of the Year Awards. Paul Tucker is a music journalist London, teaching architecture at The Testament of Gideon Mack and writer of narrative non- Kingston University. (2006) was longlisted for the fiction. He has an irrational love Man Booker Prize. His next of The Mars Volta and writes for novel, The Professor of Truth, The Quietus. ROBERT MACFARLANE will be published in 2013. He TOBY BARLOW from around the world, in Days Later and Never Let Me Go Robert Macfarlane is the author lives in rural Angus, not far Toby Barlow is the author of association with the World (based on the novel by Kazuo of Mountains of the Mind (2003), from Dundee. ROY WILKINSON Sharp Teeth, the Alex Award- Oral Literature Programme at Ishiguro). The Wild Places (2007) and Roy Wilkinson is a writer and winning epic poem about Cambridge University. The Old Ways (2012). He has sometime rock manager. His wolves in Los Angeles. He is a also just finished a short book RACHEL SANTUccIO first book, Do It For Your Mum, contributor to n+1 and The New JAY GRIFFITHS called Holloway, in collaboration Rachel Santuccio is an aspiring was published in 2011 by Rough York Times. He lives in Detroit. EMMA EASY Jay Griffiths is the author of with the Radiohead artist fiction writer, amongst many Trade Books – a non-fiction tale His next novel is scheduled to be Emma Easy mainly writes non- Wild: An Elemental Journey and Stanley Donwood. other things. of family life and rock music set released by FSG in early 2013. fiction, and is interested in the A Love Letter from a Stray Moon. against a backdrop of Nick Cave, natural world and the evocation Ronnie Corbett and the English of place. She also writes songs. JEREMY MYNOtt PENELOPE SHUttLE Lake District. CAROLINE CARVER ALYSON HALLEtt Jeremy Mynott has had a life- Penelope Shuttle has lived in Caroline Carver is a Alyson Hallett’s latest book is Six long interest in wildlife and the Cornwall since 1970. Redgrove’s Hawthornden Fellow and has VICTORIA FIELD Days in Iceland. She currently natural world. He has explored Wife (Bloodaxe Books) was published four collections, the Victoria Field is a writer works as a Royal Literary Fund the variety of human responses shortlisted for the Forward Prize latest being Tikki Tikki Man, and poetry therapist, now Fellow and lives in Falmouth. to birds from the ancient world for Best Single Collection, and for published by Ward Wood. based in Canterbury. She to the present day in Birdscapes: the T. S. Eliot Award. Sandgrain has co-edited three books on Birds in Our Imagination and and Hourglass (Bloodaxe Books therapeutic writing and teaches KATHLEEN JAMIE Experience, now available 2010) was a recommendation MELANIE CHALLENGER internationally. Hall for Cornwall Kathleen Jamie’s poetry in paperback. of The Poetry Book Society. Melanie Challenger is the have produced two of her plays. collections include The Tree New and Selected Poems will be author of On Extinction. She She has been writer-in-residence House (Picador 2004), which released by Bloodaxe Books in was a Fellow of the AHRC at Truro Cathedral and was made won both the Forward prize MAttHEW OATES October 2012. Centre for the Evolution of a Hawthornden Fellow in 2012. and the Scottish Book of the Matthew Oates is a naturalist and Cultural Diversity at University Year Award. She also writes follower of the poetic approach, College London from 2007– ALEX GARLAND non-fiction including the who writes purely to escape into IAIN SINCLAIR 2010 and International Fellow Alex Garland was born in London highly regarded Findings and, the real world. Iain Sinclair is a prolific writer of at the British Antarctic Survey in 1970. He is the author of the recently, Sightlines. fiction, poetry and non-fiction. for International Polar Year bestselling novels The Beach, His books include London 2007–2008. She is currently The Tesseract and The Coma. He HELEN ORPHIN Orbital, Hackney, That Rose-Red researching endangered music also wrote the screenplays for 28 Helen Orphin is an aspiring Empire and Ghost Milk. VISITATION CONTENTS 8 R.S.S. 50 DAVID EDDLESTANE, 84 THE LOST NETWORK ALEX GARLAND DRUMKIRK, 1974 DAVID LAWRENCE JAMES ROBERTSON 14 JAY GRIFFITHS 89 WINTER ON ROUGH TOR INTERVIEWED 54 StANDING StONES ALYSON HALLETT SIMON CADE AND ANDY 18 TRACK HOCKING 90 MARK RABLIN ROBERT MACFARLANE INTERVIEWED 62 ELIJAH HERE SHE COMES / 21 THE WOOD WHEN THE ROOKS COME 94 A HAUNTING KATHLEEN JAMIE CAROLINE CARVER VICTORIA FIELD 22 “The CiTY REVIVES” 64 ONE OF MY 96 VISITATIONS FROM PSYCHE CRAIG TAYLOR AND CHARISMATIC BIRDS MATTHEW OATES IAIN SINCLAIR JEREMY MYNOTT 26 THE MANNIE 68 GOING BACK JAMES ROBERTSON EMMA EASY 30 SAN SEBASTIÁN, 72 M. StACEY SHAFFER MOVING ON INTERVIEWED PAUL TUCKER 77 HOUSE ARREST 36 HAIL TO PULP! HAIL TO PENELOPE SHUTTLE THE GOATSUCKER! ROY WILKINSON 78 SNOW MELANIE CHALLENGER 42 TWINS TOBY BARLOW 82 GLASTONBURY HELEN ORPHIN 48 KAUAI RACHEL SANTUccIO woman, she weeps. But a man does not.’ was familiar to me. On the school premises, the FICTION And the Architect describing the day he Architect spent much of his time examining the returned to Rumbek Secondary School after the buildings. Sometimes this was to assess their town had been retaken from the Northerners: ‘The damage, to see if there was any hope of repair. But first place I visited was my old classroom. I walked more often, he was simply remembering the way R.S.S. directly to it. And when I saw it, I almost wept.’ the buildings had once been, in the years he had BY ALEX Garland Between these two statements, I felt they were been a student here. describing how I should react to their deaths. I Surprised to see that my fears were unfounded, would feel sad, perhaps close to tears, but I would pleased that my sense of death was misplaced, retain my self-control. I set off immediately towards him. But I had This, I think, is reasonable. I am between only taken a few steps when he set off himself, fifteen and sixteen years of age and I would expect heading through the short passageway to the front to behave more like a man than a woman or child.