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Posts tagged ‘Not the Booker Prize’

11
Oct

How to vote for English Slacker by Chris Morton in the Not the Booker Prize

English Slacker by Chris MortonThe final round of voting is now open in the Not the Booker Prize. If you want to vote for our shortlisted title, English Slacker by Chris Morton then you can do so by writing a review of approx. 150 words on the following webpage:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/data/book/literary-fiction/9780953317288/english-slacker

Then visit the voting page -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/07/fiction

- and post a comment saying:

“I vote for English Slacker, and you can find my review on the English Slacker review page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/data/book/literary-fiction/9780953317288/english-slacker”

(Although the voting guidelines state that each voter has to link to their own reviews, there’s a glitch on the Guardian website that means the URLs generated for English Slacker reviews don’t work, and so I have arranged the above workaround with the person who runs the competition).

The deadline for voting is midnight on October 17th.

Thank you,

Kevin Mahoney
Publisher and Founder of Punked Books

4
Oct

Can a publisher ever be justified in responding to a negative review?

When one of our novels, English Slacker (by debut novelist Chris Morton), was shortlisted for the Not the Booker Prize recently, I was ecstatic, especially as this literary award is voted for by the public. Admittedly, it had only taken 17 votes to get on to the shortlist, but we tallied more votes than many well-established authors such as David Baddiel, Greg Egan, Anne Enright, Linda Grant, Philip Hensher, Richard Mason, China Mieville, Magnus Mills, Steve Mosby, and ooh err Jilly Cooper. The shortlisting was great also because the Not the Booker Prize is run by The Guardian, and as a small publisher, I’d previously experienced great difficulty getting any attention for my publications from the national media. In the light of this, it was splendid to see that all the other shortlisted novels came from small publishing houses like mine (although one independent, Eight Cuts Gallery Press later pulled their title, The Dead Beat, from the competition, to be replaced by Sherry Cracker Gets Normal by DJ Connell, which is published by Blue Door, a HarperCollins imprint).

English Slacker by Chris MortonHowever, I was still wary, as I knew that Sam Jordison (who runs the Not the Booker Prize for The Guardian) was going to review each novel, and having read his previous reviews, I had pretty quickly gathered that he takes no prisoners whatsoever, and I warned my author of this. Despite this, I was hoping that Sam would post a positive review of English Slacker. But alas! It was not to be. A couple of the commentators on Sam’s review exclaimed “Ouch!”, as they thought that Sam’s argument was pretty damning, and concluded that English Slacker wouldn’t be worth reading.

Yet I wasn’t really upset by Sam’s review, as, having read his comments on some of the other shortlisted books, I’d been expecting much worse. (Indeed, I thought that his review was quite a funny parody of the narrative style that Chris Morton had employed throughout English Slacker.) So, I regarded Sam’s main criticisms as being cheeky jabs, rather than the swift upper cuts that I’d been expecting. In my experience, criticism that is truthful hurts way more than that which is inaccurate. Sam certainly didn’t like the dialect that Chris used for his main character, Chambers, and the fact that he was a very unreliable narrator.  A couple of other regular commentators on Guardian blog posts agreed with Sam. However, I was reassured by the fact that several other commentators came to Chris Morton’s defence, and argued that they did find Chambers’ voice to be quite authentic.

I held back from commentating myself, as I wanted to see what the general public had to say about English Slacker, and also because there had previously been a debate following the reviews of some of the other shortlisted titles as to whether the authors/publishers should respond, with the sentiment being that once a novel has been published, the authors and publishers should effectively let go of it, to allow the public to form their own opinion.

Despite the fact that one of the commentators believed that Sam’s review of English Slacker was “arguably mean-spirited”, I was also mindful of the recent furore that surrounded the British author Jacqueline Howlett when she responded very vigorously to a negative review of her ebook The Greek Seaman (Bullet Reviews have a splendid overview of this controversy on their website), and so I wanted to avoid making an angry, knee-jerk reaction (especially since I didn’t feel particularly angry). However, even a seasoned publisher such as Patrick Janson-Smith felt compelled to exclaim the following in reaction to Sam Jordison’s similarly negative review of Sherry Cracker Gets Normal: “This, from the co-author of CRAP TOWNS. Enough said“, along with, ”Let’s face it, Sam Jordison, yours is just a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work, with no thought given to an author’s feelings“.

Although I thought that Sam Jordison’s review of English Slacker was quite a funny parody of the narrative voice, I too was expecting a much deeper level of insight from him, as his review could have been written by a nonchalant GCSE English student (which in turn would not have been marked very highly by his examiners). To be fair to him, Sam is also employed to stir up debate, and this is something he does splendidly well. As I noted above, there are others readers who share Sam’s dislike of Chambers’ narrative voice, which is fair enough, as it’s not to everyone’s taste. Yet I think that literary criticism is as much an art form as literature itself, and so I had been expecting Sam to delve far deeper into the text than the casual reader. As it is, Sam Jordison’s claim that English Slacker is “boring and repetitive” leaps out at you from the review’s high ranking on Google, to such an extent that it appears that this label may well be indelibly attached to the novel.

A few days after Sam Jordison’s review had been published, I felt a clamour within myself to defend English Slacker, for if I wasn’t going to do it, then who else would? Debut novels like English Slacker have such a short shelf life as it is, and I didn’t want Chris Morton’s literary career to end abruptly due to Sam Jordison’s unjust condemnation. Besides, for every commentator such as John Self who wanted the authors and the publishers to let their books go, there were others on the Guardian site who very much wanted us to defend English Slacker, and my decision to nominate it for the Not the Booker Prize. And so I wrote, and wrote, and ended up with a 2,500 word essay entitled “In defence of English Slacker“, which you can access here:

http://authortrek.com/punked-books/2011/09/28/english-slacker-defence/

Although I was fairly critical of Sam Jordison’s review of English Slacker, Sam’s response was to write: “I’m sure most writers would kill to have a publisher write such an eloquent and passionate defence of their work… Kudos to Punked books on that score“. I don’t think I’ve changed his mind about English Slacker, but a fair few people have read the essay, so at least I’ve shown that there is a far more positive reading to be made of Chris Mortison’s subtle and intelligent debut.

In a way, Sam Jordison has done me favour by so unfairly reviewing English Slacker, as he forced me to defend it. Since I run Punked Books all by myself, I never had to get the agreement to publish English Slacker from say, the Sales or Marketing departments, as I would have done if I worked in a big conglomerate publishing company. I’d thought I’d published a great book, but now thanks to Sam Jordison’s bad review of English Slacker, I know for sure I have.

So, could other publishers defend their books in such a manner? The publishing conglomerates would probably be wary about doing so, for fear of offending their colleagues in the reviewing fraternity. However, if the book in question is one that the publisher feels passionately about (and one that isn’t scheduled to be rescued by a big marketing budget), then why not try? It would certainly make publishing company blogs a lot more interesting! I think that if you make your arguments in a logical, imaginative, and coherent way (rather than as an immediate angry response), then you may well win your literary debate (as hopefully I will do so with regards to English Slacker).

Kevin Mahoney
Publisher and Founder of Punked Books

28
Sep

In defence of Chris Morton’s English Slacker

The Guardian’s Sam Jordison reviewed English Slacker as part of the Not the Booker Prize process. Obviously, the author Chris Morton and I were hoping for a positive review, but it wasn’t to be.  C’est la vie. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t respond to a negative review, but Sam Jordison, in his role as prosecutor, asked for a defence of ‘English Slacker’, so I thought that it would be most negligent of me not to do so.

English Slacker by Chris MortonThank you for your review Sam, I thought that your parody of ‘English Slacker’ was quite amusing, although obviously I very much disagree with your conclusions. I will use this blog post to present my own very different reading of ‘English Slacker’, which will go some way to explain why I nominated it for the Not the Booker Prize. This will, of course, be my own personal view of the novel, which readers are welcome to either accept or dismiss if they so choose. So @JohnSelfsAsylum, you can relax, as I’ve no intention of forcing my interpretation upon you or anyone else who has disliked ‘English Slacker’.

Thank you also Sam for highlighting the misspelling of ‘Marlboro’. However, it is just that – a mere spelling mistake. Admittedly, it’s quite an embarrassing one on both my and Chris’ part, since Marlboro is the biggest selling brand of cigarettes in the world. Then again, one could argue (with tongue firmly embedded in cheek) that this vindicates the policy of successive UK governments of restricting tobacco advertising, if some literary types can no longer spell their brand name. Although one could also playfully argue that it’s Philip Morris International who can’t spell, since they named this brand after the site of its original London factory: Great Marlborough Street. I’m in two minds as to whether I should correct this error in the book, since I don’t really want to give Marlboro any more free advertising than you’ve done in your review. Yet ‘Marlborough’ makes this brand sound too dignified, too Churchillian; I will correct the spelling as soon as possible in the e-book editions.

So Sam, I will award one gold star for the spotting of this elementary spelling mistake. However, if you can find me a full-length book that has absolutely no typos or inaccuracies in it, then I will give you ten gold stars. For I’m afraid, that no matter how hard we publishers try, we will never be able to remove all typos from a book. For instance, within this thread, I’ve noticed that @JulianGough writes “owch” instead of “ouch”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/12535677

This spelling of “owch” has also made it on to page 5 of ‘Jude in London’. Admittedly, “owch” is an alternative spelling of “ouch”, but it’s rather an archaic one, but I’m not going to dismiss ‘Jude in London’ without having read it in full (as @JulianGough seems all too ready to do with regards to ‘English Slacker’). In a similar light, my close reading of Zadie Smith’s ‘On Beauty’ upon publication revealed that the Haitian artist Hector Hyppolite’s painting ‘Maitresse Erzulie’ had been incorrectly ascribed to the similarly named (but unrelated) French philosopher Jean Hyppolite within the text, which is a little unfortunate since the painting played a pivotal role in the drama. Whatever its importance, this typo didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the text as a whole, or devalue its deserved win of the Orange Prize in my eyes (although other critics may choose to disagree with that!).

Although I did enjoy Sam’s review, I did think that it was a bit lazy (although the parody is quite clever, it wouldn’t be beyond the capabilities of one of Chambers’ friends to write something similar in one of their English exams). Admittedly, I have been known to spend a whole week performing a close reading of a literary text before reviewing it. Obviously, this is certainly not something that I would expect an average reader to do, but a paid reviewer ought to be far more meticulous than the casual reader. Then again, Sam’s disparaging of Chambers’ voice is fair enough, as it’s not to everyone’s taste. However, several contributors to this forum have come forward to say that they that think that Chambers’ dialect is authentic, and not the artificial construct that Sam believes it is.

It should go without saying that Chambers’ dialect certainly isn’t the most challenging in literature, since Irvine Welsh’s version of Scots language in ‘Trainspotting’ is far more testing, as it’s quite a startling contrast to Standard English text. However, like many novels written in dialect, ‘Trainspotting’ most definitely becomes more rewarding once you’ve fully immersed yourself into its voice. For most casual readers, Chambers’ dialect should also be far more accessible than that say, of Celie in ‘The Color Purple’.

Yet, as Sam relates, it’s not just Chambers’ dialect that will be a barrier to some readers feeling empathy for him, it’s also his mannerisms, as Chris Morton hasn’t perhaps made it easy for himself by casting Chambers in the role of the unreliable narrator throughout ‘English Slacker’. For instance, as early as page 63 (chapter 17), Chambers relates how Colin has stated that it isn’t easy being dead, yet later in the novel, Chambers is still chatting away to Colin and talking about him as if he’s still alive (much to Alex and Paul’s derision in chapter 38). Then there’s the question of Colin’s suicide note; at first, Chambers states that he wrote it, but then he contradicts this by saying that Colin may have slipped it into his pocket during their last meeting. So, Chris Morton’s utilisation of the unreliable narrator may well prove alienating for some readers, but for others, it’s indicative of Chambers’ very confused state of mind throughout much of ‘English Slacker’.

I have a great deal of affection for Chambers, because I can imagine how I’d feel if I were 18 (again), with the rush of hormones in my veins, looking forward to my last summer of freedom by partying with my mates (and finally asserting my manhood by hopefully copping off with some girls along the way), when lo and behold, my former best friend ruins it all by topping himself at this pivotal moment in both our lives. Thus ‘English Slacker’ is concerned with how Chambers copes with the emotional trauma that visits him in the wake of his bereavement. No one seeks to ease Chambers’ suffering by offering him counselling, and, with all that testosterone pumping through his veins, asking for help is just something that doesn’t occur to Chambers, as this would offend his new-found masculine sensibilities, because for him (and many blokes) it doesn’t come naturally to him to express his emotions as Celie does in ‘The Color Purple’. Beyond this, the shock of Colin’s death means that he’s very much in denial about what has happened. However, Chambers is rather endearing in this regard, as rather than expressing his own trauma, he often chooses to empathise with the feelings of others instead, especially with regards to Charlotte in chapter 5, and Sereme in chapter 19, who are both treated somewhat insensitively by Graz.

It doesn’t help Chambers in his struggle to overcome his grief and his guilt that he’s not very articulate (not that the latter helped Hamlet much in his sufferings), especially as Chris Morton has chosen to represent him as an everyman, rather than someone blessed with verbal dexterity, as say the characters in Lars Iyer’s ‘Spurious’ are.  Chambers’ narrative voice also dispenses with the various literary tricks that @JulianGough’s Jude deploys in his tale. However, that is not to say that ‘English Slacker’ is bereft of such devices, just that Chris Morton is subtler in his approach. For instance, the dream that features Chambers wiping blood from the front of Alex and Paul’s van on top of the cliffs isn’t pointless (as Sam thinks it is), as it’s one of the first times that Chambers expresses guilt over Colin’s death. Since Chambers is fairly inarticulate, and averse to talking about his sufferings, one of the ways in his psyche deals with the shock of Colin’s death is by metaphorically symbolising his feelings via dreams and visions. (One extreme reading of ‘English Slacker’ could be that Chambers did knock Colin off the cliff edge with Alex and Paul’s van.) However, in this instance, I believe that the van is not literally meant to represent an actual murder weapon, although like Lady Macbeth’s dagger, it does represent Chambers’ guilt over the death of another human being; even if Chambers didn’t murder Colin, it feels to him as if he did by not following Colin up on to the edge of the cliffs that fateful night.

Yet, if we cast our minds back to when we were 18, would any of us have been any more receptive than Chambers was when listening to philosophical bullshit from another 18-year-old after a shitty day at work? Especially when the said friend in question had a habit of coming out with such philosophical bullshit? Chambers also feels guilty for having allowed himself to gradually drift so far away from Colin as he strove to assert his own identity, rather than be forever labelled as being a joint entity with his former best friend. (Having written that, Chambers does seek refuge with Alex and Paul, an older version of the Chambers/Colin joint entity, who end up aimlessly wandering through the town.)  With teenage hormones rushing through his veins also, Colin asserts his identity as well (and fears the loss of it) to such an extent that he discards his girlfriend and all his other friends and interests, all because he only feels ‘real’ when sitting on the cliff tops, listening to the sound of the sea and the wind. Such is Colin’s nihilistic vision, that he extinguishes his own life. Yet one might argue that since Colin is still a work in progress, since his body and mind haven’t yet reached maturity: he may well have had a more positive aspect on life a few months or years down the line. Indeed, despite your inexperience at this age, life does seems far more dramatic when you’re a teenager, and it’s Colin’s tragedy that he doesn’t get to realise this. (Sam did rather let his usually higher standards down, when, in a rather desperate effort to provoke discussion further, he wrote: “If your book had less to say about human tragedy than my turds, don’t put it forward for an award” – I’ve not had the pleasure of interviewing Sam’s turds, so I’m not quite sure what they have to say about life, but hopefully I’ve done enough thus far to persuade you that ‘English Slacker’ does indeed have some insights into the human condition.)

The visions that Chambers experiences aren’t enough in themselves to assuage his feelings of shame for not having listened to Colin properly that night, and so, to make some sort of closure, Chambers demonstrates his emotional intelligence by reconstructing what Colin may have said by writing the contentious suicide note (chapter 47). If Chambers did truly write it, then not only does it display his empathy, but he can quite coherently express his thoughts in prose. However, as noted earlier, this is an instance where Chambers slips into ‘unreliable narrator’ mode, as he later states that Colin may also have written this note, and passed it to him surreptitiously before killing himself. This is an example of one of the alternative readings of ‘English Slacker’ (with the most likely reading being that all the events are going on in Chambers’ drug-addled head), as is the possibility that Colin passed his suicide note to Chambers after death.

For instance, one could argue that the fizzing sound in Chambers’ head is just a by-product of smoking weed. However, there is another argument that this is an example of Colin’s haunting of Chambers, as during chapter 20, the same fizzing noise emanates from Colin’s mouth in a dream. In the suicide note, the sound of the wind and the sea at the top of Colin’s beloved cliffs are explicitly described as “fizzing”. So, when Chambers hears the fizzing noise in the book, this is possibly a sign that the spirit of Colin is looking over him at this time. Beyond the various flashbacks, Colin also manifests himself as a ghost from time to time. Yet he’s rather subtler than Marley, as he doesn’t resort to wearing heavy, clinking chains, but instead to perhaps signify his spiritual nature in chapter 10 by allowing a halo-like light to encircle his shaven head (it’s my belief that the cutting of his locks occurred during the autopsy). Nor is Colin as structured in his approach to haunting as Marley, as he doesn’t present Chambers with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Instead, he chooses to intervene in Chambers’ life when he sees fit. Not that his manifestations are without purpose though; as stated in his suicide note, Colin was very much afraid of losing his identity when he went out with Tanya. Thus he appears to interfere when Chambers becomes close to a girl, during those peculiar blackouts that Chambers suffers after both Charlotte and Holly have kissed him. Indeed, Chambers links these two events in chapter 28 and speculates that the reason Colin may have brought the blackouts about was because he was angry with Chambers for some reason, although Chambers doesn’t know why, because he hasn’t written\read the suicide note yet. (Although admittedly, these blackouts could just be a result of the drink and drugs that Chambers has taken).

In the vision that occurs during his blackout with Holly, Chambers sees himself metaphorically wrestling with Colin, but for some reason, Chambers lets Colin win, which is possibly another step in his recovery from the trauma caused by his bereavement. Once Chambers has recalled and understood Colin’s anguish, and has realised that he is blameless for Colin’s demise, Chambers can finally move on. Now that he’s no longer haunted by Colin’s death, this doesn’t mean to say that he has accepted Colin’s nihilistic vision, merely that it was true to his friend, and that it was this that led to his death. Although, I like the fact that, despite the fact that he’s gone through this major trauma, Chambers demonstrates that he still has a lot more growing up to do as he seriously contemplates what is obviously a scam advertisement in the newspaper, which offers to give him with all the skills he would need to become a Private Investigator!

Hopefully I have demonstrated to you that once you’ve pulled all the workings of ‘English Slacker’ apart, Chris Morton’s novel is a lot more complex than it initially seems, and that it works on a variety of levels, as a literary novel should do. ‘English Slacker’ also provides a great insight into the workings of the average English teenage male, albeit when beset by a major psychological struggle. I hereby now rest the case for the defence, as I’m afraid that I’m going to have to spend the rest of the day paying out royalties. However, I’ve also put together a reading guide to what I consider are the most salient parts of the novel online:

http://authortrek.com/punked-books/2011/09/28/english-slacker-reading-guide/
24
Aug

Chris Morton’s English Slacker shortlisted for the Not the Booker Prize!

I’m over the moon that Chris Morton’s debut novel, English Slacker, has been shortlisted for the Not the Booker Prize:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/18/not-the-booker-prize-2011-shortlist

The Not the Booker Prize was founded by The Guardian in 2009 in order to give the public their say on who should win a prestigious literary award such as the Man Booker Prize, as The Guardian thought that it was rarely given to the most exceptional book of the year.

Although it only took 17 votes to get shortlisted, the voting procedure was a bit more arduous this year, as those voting had to submit a 150 word review. In the process, we tallied more votes than many well-established authors such as David Baddiel, Greg Egan, Anne Enright, Linda Grant, Philip Hensher, Richard Mason, China Mieville, Magnus Mills, Steve Mosby, and ooh err Jilly Cooper.

Punked Books does certainly seem to be getting more recognised, as we now have people of the stature of Elizabeth Emanuel (Princess Diana’s wedding dress designer) following us on our Twitter feed. However, getting one of our titles shortlisted for a national literary award is the most exciting experience I’ve had while publishing Punked Books.


Kevin Mahoney
Punked Books Publisher and Founder

English Slacker Chris Morton front cover

Chambers is an eighteen-year-old student living in the small town of Bracksea, England. Fresh from his final college exams, he is now ready for what is to be his last summer of freedom, which involves going to parties, smoking dope and getting drunk with all his friends. However, what begins as a seemingly innocent and routine set of social events soon turns into a nightmare for Chambers as a suppressed memory – which may or may not be related to the recent disappearance of his best friend Colin – begins to surface. The more Chambers immerses himself in the distractions around him the more he begins to find that he is losing his whole sense of reality…

Visit our Chris Morton page

The paperback’s rrp is £7.99, but you can buy it for only £7.25 with free p&p via the shopping basket below. Orders for UK customers will usually arrive within a few working days, while orders for other countries will usually arrive in within a few weeks. Secure payment via your credit/debit card is provided by PayPal, and you don’t need to register to PayPal or log into PayPal to pay. If you have any problems with your order, please contact editor@authortrek.com.

English Slacker

English Slacker by Chris Morton (paperback)

Additional DescriptionMore Details

A synopsis of this book can be found at:

http://authortrek.com/punked-books/2011/02/21/english-slacker

Free postage & packaging for all orders. Orders for UK customers will usually arrive within a few working days, while orders for other countries will usually arrive in within a few weeks.

Secure payment via your credit/debit card is provided by PayPal, and you don't need to register to PayPal or log into PayPal to pay. If you have any problems with your order, please contact editor@authortrek.com.


£7.25Price:

You can also buy the ebook edition for only £2.16 (i.e. VAT free) as Punked Books hasn’t yet reached the VAT threshold.  You can either purchase the epub version, or the Kindle version.

21
Feb

English Slacker by Chris Morton, ISBN 9780953317288

English Slacker Chris Morton front coverChris Morton’s debut novel, English Slacker, was shortlisted for the Not the Booker Prize!

Chambers is an eighteen-year-old student living in the small town of Bracksea, England. Fresh from his final college exams, he is now ready for what is to be his last summer of freedom, which involves going to parties, smoking dope and getting drunk with all his friends. However, what begins as a seemingly innocent and routine set of social events soon turns into a nightmare for Chambers as a suppressed memory – which may or may not be related to the recent disappearance of his best friend Colin – begins to surface. The more Chambers immerses himself in the distractions around him the more he begins to find that he is losing his whole sense of reality…

Visit our Chris Morton page - Visit Chris Morton’s blog

The paperback’s rrp is £7.99, but you can buy it for only £7.25 with free p&p via the shopping basket below. Orders for UK customers will usually arrive within a few working days, while orders for other countries will usually arrive in within a few weeks. Secure payment via your credit/debit card is provided by PayPal, and you don’t need to register to PayPal or log into PayPal to pay. If you have any problems with your order, please contact editor@authortrek.com.

English Slacker

English Slacker by Chris Morton (paperback)

Additional DescriptionMore Details

A synopsis of this book can be found at:

http://authortrek.com/punked-books/2011/02/21/english-slacker

Free postage & packaging for all orders. Orders for UK customers will usually arrive within a few working days, while orders for other countries will usually arrive in within a few weeks.

Secure payment via your credit/debit card is provided by PayPal, and you don't need to register to PayPal or log into PayPal to pay. If you have any problems with your order, please contact editor@authortrek.com.


£7.25Price:

You can also buy the ebook edition for only £2.16 (i.e. VAT free) as Punked Books hasn’t yet reached the VAT threshold.  You can either purchase the epub version, or the Kindle version.

Read Lucy Cunnington’s review of English Slacker

Slacking off with Brighton author Chris Morton – Caroline King’s interview with Chris Morton for Contrary Life

Eight Cuts Gallery – Dan Holloway’s interview with Chris Morton about English Slacker