Liz Jensen's Blog, page 6
May 3, 2019
Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick de Witt – a comic tale with a touching protagonist
One of the great joys of comic fiction is that it can do anything it wants. It can explore the sexual possibilities of a giant salami, provoke empathy with a merciless killer, or throw the English language into a blender and make it taste like high gastronomy despite the weird colour and the lumps – or perhaps because of them.
Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney – foul play and doomed love in the Arctic
Unforgiving landscapes have served Stef Penney well: she first depicted them to heart-catching effect in her Costa-winning debut The Tenderness of Wolves, a historical adventure of abduction and quest, cultural assimilation and domination set in the Canadian wilderness. A meticulously researched drama set among British Gypsies, The Invisible Ones, followed. In the stately, glittering iceberg that is Under a Pole Star she returns to the north with a tale of foul play and doomed love.
No Dominion by Louise Welsh – a deeply satisfying conclusion
According to futurologists, a baby born today will live to 100. But what do they know? In her Plague Times trilogy, Louise Welsh trashes such blithe predictions, setting the grim reaper to work in a not unlikely near-future scenario: a flu-like epidemic ravaging the world’s population and leaving survivors plunged into chaos.
If the landscape is familiar… Read more
February 22, 2019
Our House, Our Fire, our Fiction
“I want you to act as you would in a crisis,” the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg told Davos last month. “I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”
When a kid in pigtails speaks truth to power, the world listens.
At a time when the science could not be clearer, Thunberg’s burning house metaphor turned her appearance at Davos into an iconic moment in climate history.
Our house on fire: an image everyone on the planet can understand. Our, implies an us: a communi...
January 2, 2019
Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates
Time travel stories are seldom really about time, or travel, and Joyce Carol Oates’ 46th novel is no exception. Audacious, chilling and darkly playful, her thought experiment about belonging and otherness is quick to ignite, but admirably slow to reveal the full extent of its dystopian proposition. The action begins in a queasily familiar near-future America where ‘democracy’ is administered by an acronym-loving bureaucracy appointed by the oligarchic Patriot Party, the only political show in...
November 21, 2018
Who knew that Liz was short for Lizard?
Interview with Liz on The Drax Files radio show. The interview begins at the three minute mark.
October 16, 2018
Peake Under the Covers: The Master of Gormenghast
Mervyn Peake, who died 50 years ago this month, was a prolific and astonishingly original writer and artist. Best known today for creating the tangled world of Gormenghast he was also an accomplished painter, playwright, illustrator and poet. This celebration of his life and work includes contributions by writer Neil Gaiman, currently adapting Gormenghast for the screen, author Liz Jensen, and illustrator and writer...
May 14, 2018
COME ON IN – a short story
“In the dark, dark woods Sacha came upon a hut that stood on chicken feet. Inside lived a witch called Baba Yaga Boneylegs,” reads Estelle. Pollution levels are low so she and Howie are sitting out on the balcony. The boy is transfixed by the illustration of the hut running round on its giant legs. “Little girl, I’m going to eat you for my supper, said the witch!”
Fifteen floors below them in plastic tents and makeshift shacks live the refugees: old men, teenagers, extended families. There a...
Come on in
“In the dark, dark woods Sacha came upon a hut that stood on chicken feet. Inside lived a witch called Baba Yaga Boneylegs,” reads Estelle. Pollution levels are low so she and Howie are sitting out on the balcony. The boy is transfixed by the illustration of the hut running round on its giant legs. “Little girl, I’m going to eat you for my supper, said the witch!”
Fifteen floors below them in plastic tents and makeshift shacks live the refugees: old men, teenagers, extended families. There a...
March 24, 2018
An exclusive weekend with Liz
Liz guest tutors an exclusive weekend writing course May 4-7, at Helsingør in Denmark.
More details and a chance to book here.
Liz Jensen's Blog
- Liz Jensen's profile
- 226 followers
