Kerry Hudson's Blog, page 11

Not so much the underdog as the under-flea on the underdog...

It was 1am and I was sitting on my rucksack on the gleaming floor of Bangkok airport. I had snacks (cashew nuts, a slightly bruised apple, a green tea latte from the 7-11) my feet were filthy, I had sunburned shins and too broke/tight to pay for an airport hotel I was waiting it out until my 9am flight when I got the news I’d been shortlisted for a Southbank Sky Arts Award for literature along with Hilary Mantel and Will Self. My reaction? Holy. Fucking. Jesus. Christ.

Of course, I’m not so much the underdog as the under-flea on the underdog. But honestly, who gives a shit? I’m most comfortable as the underdog (no sniggering at the back of the class please). It is an absolute fucking complete honour to be shortlisted alongside Mantel and Self and something I’m so grateful for. I’m going to buy a new frock (no, I can’t really afford one and yes, I will get it wrong and it will almost definitely too short and wholly inappropriate). I’ll get a free lunch. I’ll get to go goggle famous folks (how do they get so shiny-sheeny?). I still can’t quite believe it but it’s on the internet so it must be true.

Plus I am back in absolutely bloody beautiful London. I’ve never been more adoring of this city as I have been in the last few days. The pleasure of a freezing muddy walk on the Heath, toast dripping with butter and Marmite, Stout and sausage-rolls in old man pubs and too much wine and threats of a barring from Camden Mecca Bingo (don’t ask), long bus journeys with a cup of coffee, good music and the soaking city sliding by…today, the Southbank’s Poetry Library and a whole afternoon of writing…

Sorry, I worry that this blog is becoming just a long glut of happy, grateful wordy gurgles…but as I say, who gives a shit? I am happy. I am grateful. And now I’m off out onto the shining nighttime streets of London town. 

On monkeys, magpies and sleeping in airports

I am sleeping in Bangkok Airport tonight. I love airports, full of greetings and goodbyes, essentially full of stories and human intrigue. Tomorrow morning I’ll board my flight back to beautiful, bursting, brilliant London. Only for two weeks when I’ll reacquaint myself with Hackney and the people whose faces I’ve missed and spend a lot of time at the Southbank revising up a storm. After that it’s off to Paris for six weeks working. I love Paris too, I’ve never been there in springtime and I am fantasising about all that beautiful light (and cake) (and vintage shopping) (and their excellent, excellent library).

After that? Who knows. 2013 is joyfully unstructured for me though I do have the Aye Write Festival, Firestation Bookswap and Polari in April, a month Supervising at Cambridge’s Pembroke College with the National Academy of writing in August, the launch of the French edition of Tony Hogan. I suspect this year has some more surprises ahead too.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my transient, fly by the seat of my pants lifestyle which really, is just my pursuit of freedom to write. People have taken to asking me particular questions ‘don’t you get lonely?’ (yes, sometimes, doesn’t everyone) don’t you wish you had a home? (define home), aren’t you worried about leaving it too late to settle down? (would you ask a man in his early thirties that same question?) The truth is this: writing and living fully and decently are my absolute priorities for this year. If I have time to read and work and have small adventures each day then I think I will become a better writer, that it will make for better books in time to come.

I am a glutton for sights, smells, noises, new people and trying to understand my reactions to unfamiliar circumstances as they quickly change colours like oil on water. I think of each new place as a visit to a library, or a penny sweet shop, I think I am filing pieces of places away or shoving them messily inside a straining rucksack for a future story. It won’t always translate in the way I expect; a Thai train guard who shouted at me for making my own bed on a sleeper train will become a check-out girl in a Hackney, Tesco Metro who thinks customers always pack their carrier bags wrong. I want to think that these new things, from my beginning in Hanoi to Hackney to Paris, are the laying down of breadcrumbs or the planting of tiny, shining black seeds.

I used to call this curiosity the monkey on my back; constantly pulling at my hair, aroused and morbidly fascinated by everything I saw and experienced – it hasn’t always been a benevolent pet either. I’ve wondered recently if writers ever experience anything authentically, purely, without placing a narrative upon it, or plucking off the shiny bits for their collections like magpies. But maybe that’s a post for another time. ..

It’s no accident that writers often travel. Theroux, Sackville-West, Wolstonecraft, Capote, Fitzgerald, Greene and Hemingway are just the ones that instantly spring to mind. Writers are natural tourists: outsiders and scavengers of curious things. I return to the UK with work done and more work to do, a monkey on my back, a magpie nesting in my hair and a desire to stay a tourist for wee while longer yet.

See you back in London folks. 

What Can I Say Except Thank You Very Fucking Much

Dear 2012,

You’ve been a blinding, brilliant one and I couldn’t have asked for anything more from you. 

This year Tony Hogan came out and its publication brought more than I could ever have hoped for. I did interviews and got reviews. Tony Hogan made some short/end of year lists. I did some incredible events. I wrote stories for magazines and Sunday supplements. I traveled to Edinburgh, Poland and then all the way back to my adopted Hanoi. I met some of the most decent/smart/gentle writers/readers/booksellers I could imagine. People contacted me to tell me that Tony Hogan/the Ryan women/Janie’s striving for more touched something in them or helped them or just gave them a good laugh or a cry - those have been the best moments really.  

2012, you have been a gift to me and I’ve not stopped being grateful for it all for even a minute.  I promise I thank my lucky stars every single day and know how lucky I’ve been.

Tomorrow I’m spending the night on a farm up in the Hanoian mountains. I’m going to eat cake, drink whisky by a campfire under smoggy stars, wish happy birthdays and another year with good things to come. It feels like the perfect way to part ways with a wonderful year. 

Like I say, thank you very fucking much you’ve been an absolute beauty.   

It is like Top of the Pops here

Just a wee one. I am mostly busy eating an amazing The Cart (if you are in Hanoi hunt it out and live out all your sandwich dreams (I’m suddenly aware that maybe it is just me who has sandwich dreams)) pork and apple Banh Mi simultaneously writing a short story about Hanoi and urging novel-sized love along in Siberia.

Anyway, as a lady who loves lists I’m bloody delighted to be on a few end of year ones.

First, Louise Welsh named Tony Hogan as one of her books of the year in The Herald saying it should do for Aberdeen what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh.    

Then The List only put me on their Hot 100: Scottish Cultural Contributors list (if you click there is also a picture of Frankie Boyle with an otherworldly ginger beard). 

And as an extra early Christmas present (not that I deserve any after the bloody beautiful year I’ve had) to top it all off Tony Hogan made Foyles Top 10 books of 2012.

As-ever-surprised and chuffed beyond measure. There’s been so much to be grateful for in 2012 and I really, really am.  

Here’s a picture of a dog lusting after a sandwich in celebration of good things. 

It Is Much Warmer in Hanoi When You Are Jigging Around in Excitement

I am taking a blogging break from my self-imposed editing prison sentence during which I sit at my desk for long hours by a very old Chinese electric bar heater that may see me expire in a towering inferno (good for book sales I imagine though?) while drinking gallons of fresh ginger and mint tea and munching my way through ‘healthy’ oatcakes make from, among other things, condensed milk (so good).

Anyway enough about that. I’m on here with news. That’s right NEWS. And not just about the biscuit selections available here in Hanoi (though for those who are interested, they are delicious, sweet, entirely made of things that shouldn’t go inside your body usually).

Anyway! NEWS…I am thrilled to announce that Penguin US have acquired Tony Hogan. PENGUIN! USA! Janie Ryan is finally off to America (those who’ve read the book will understand the significance). I like to think I’m staying close to my UK roots following the Penguin Random House merger too.

So there we go, that’s better news that oatcakes made with condensed milk eh?

Also, I’ve been dancing around my room so much I’ve been able to turn the Chinese electric bar heater down a bit thus lessening the chance of me dying in a fiery blaze. Good news all round really.    

Just when you thought I would stop banging on about that sweary book I wrote...

…here’s the paperback cover for Tony Hogan. It’s a corker an’ all…

I insist everyone gets legless on my behalf

I should be doing something tonight. That would mainly involve fretting about my skirt being too short and my saying the wrong thing after a glass too many at Guardian First Book Award ceremony. I would have so loved to have been there but I am still away in the land of many motorbikes, noodles and pyjamas as outerwear (which I wholeheartedly approve of obviously). 

I should probably have probably gone for a cocktail tonight or watched an old movie at Cinematheque or at least cycled around West Lake and enjoyed the sparkle of the lights on the water. Instead I am editing, wearing my favourite writing jumper with the giant hole in the armpit and woolly socks as Hanoi’s autumn arrives.

The truth is it would have been nice to go to the swanky party but I don’t really need to. I’m so lucky to be on the shortlist with four other incredible writers and that’s enough. And (even though I was brought up to believe this sort of feeling would blow up in my face and burn my eyebrows off) whisper it: I am proud. I’m proud just to be on that list and to be representing the female (and Brit) novelists tonight.

I do however insist you all leg-numbingly drunk, wear very short skirts and say all the stupid things I would have on my behalf. I’ll be here, making things up and indulging in some London custard cake…cheers!

Mostly spending my time in Hanoi...and Hackney and Siberia

I don’t have a lot to report really. I am working on Thirst re-reading and editing clumsy sentences, strange words and inconsistencies. This is a gentle re-acquaintance with the Dave, Alena, Hackney and Siberia before I start on my editors notes. 

Most of my days here comprise of a pic’n’mix of the following things: 

Editing + cycling back-alleys and around the lakes + gym (it’s at the top of a shopping mall the sauna smells of lemongrass) + bun cha + reading + Cinematheque (the art cinema here…this week Hitchcock, next Coen brothers) + the lake + French class (my Vietnamese classmates are so lovely) + green tea & jasmine + flatmate chatter + Cafe sua + emails home + papaya salad with beef jerky + hello, hello, hello from schoolkids + Banh mi = my Hanoi

Some days I am homesick. I miss people. We all know I how much I love London. Sometimes I want to walk Hampstead Heath, catch the 243, eat some pie and mash, cosy up in a winter coat and watch the lights of London dance on the Thames. And then I get on my wee red bike, cycle around the dusty city streets, see things I will never ever forget and remind myself that it is a huge privilege and treat to have this length of time to write and I am glad and grateful.

Today is the first cool day of winter in Hanoi, so I’m wearing an actual sweater and drinking ginger and lemongrass tea about to return to Hackney and Siberia to read about Dave and Alena’s first kiss.

Isn't she lovely?

I’d like you to meet the new lady in my life: Betsy Spitfire. Isn’t she a beauty? She’s a Vietnamese Asmama and she rides like a dream. True, she is cheap and a little flimsy but that’s always something I’ve admired in a woman. Each day I weave her in and out of the Hanoi motorbike traffic (there are 6 million people in Hanoi and they are all on the roads ALL of the time) ringing my little bell. It’s unusual to see a blonde ‘Tay’ (literally west meaning westener) riding a push bike, especially in my non ex-pat university district, Cau Giay, so students will shout hello to me, look perplexed and then return my smiles at intersections. It’s early days but I think Betsy and I are going to have lots of adventures.  

I’m all moved into my new apartment. Sharing with a Vietnamese journalist Thuy (she is 36 and absolute powerhouse: investigative journalist, Oxford fellow, documentary maker, lecturer…). We have a collection of vintage typewriters in the livingroom and three floors so there is always peace to work, excepting the bicycle sellers who come around the alleys shouting their wares. 

I’m taking French lessons at the French Cultural Centre. I am so bad. Even the teacher assumes an expression of amazement at my badness as I fumble my way through the most basic phrases. Still, three lessons a week for two months - I should at least be able to say my name and order a coffee. 

I’ve joined a swanky gym and discovered a supermarket to buy delicious Vietnamese ingredients, I want to come home a Bun Cha whizz. 

I’ve just had a Banh Mi Cha Lua and Cafe Sua Da for lunch. 

I keep a picture of the great lady-adventurer and writer Mary Wolstonecraft above my desk as I reminder of how lucky I am to be here. Two weeks after leaving London I’m all settled and today I’m re-reading my editors notes on Thirst and creating a work schedule for the next three months. I really couldn’t be happier.

  

I know people say those things. Speechless or I didn’t think I had a chance or I can’t...

I know people say those things. Speechless or I didn’t think I had a chance or I can’t bloody believe it. People say them but I really mean it…I was just beyond thrilled to even make the Guardian First Book Award longlist. 

I am relieved to spill the beans though…I found out Tony Hogan had been shortlisted for the award in a hot little room in a Bangkok guesthouse last Friday. It was 1am, the rickety ceiling fan was whirring the thick air around and I’d just completed my 30 hour journey to south-east Asia. I picked up the email and then said aloud ‘just…fucking…what?’ and then repeated a few times ‘no fucking way, no fucking way’ with a ridiculous amazed expression (I imagine). With the email came a request to write a 400 word piece about writing Tony Hogan. They are in The Review today along with 400 words from the other (frankly terrifyingly brilliant) shortlistees and extracts from all of our books. You can read the fruits of my late night, poolside, slightly jetlagged writing here. 

Since then I’ve transited three different countries. I spent today riding from one end of Hanoi to the other on motorbikes looking for an apartment. It is the strangest thing getting news like this all the way out here. I will say I’m hugely grateful and joyful and enormously humbled by the company I’m keeping on that list.

It is nighttime in Hanoi and I am thanking every lucky star I have. 

So there we go - not quite as speechless as I thought (surprise).